Bump is a fitting example of a mainstream media journalist. Zero curiosity, zero interest in holding power to account unless it's someone who doesn't play for Team Blue. He thinks his job is to be an attorney for Biden.
He is a proud member of the fourth estate fifth column that is destroying this nation from the inside.
The stupider the people are, the easier they are to manipulate, this is why they've gutted the journalism and education. Once you learn genuine critical thinking, you are no use to the powers that shouldn't be. They have every reason to keep you stupid/uninformed/confused/distracted and fighting among yourselves by any means possible—they never taught African American slaves to read either.
It all boils down to this: make life easy for someone and that someone does not grow, does not harden, does not ripen. That person goes into a state of arrested development and becomes a dependent slave - French kissing his master's boots for his next meal. That is what all this social justice & LGBTQ+ nonsense is about, all of this getting rid of Ds and Fs in grading is about, this is what welfare and UBI is about, this is what reality TV and social media is about: to deliberately create a generation of Idiocracy slaves who cannot think for or take care of themselves. This is a real Flyer around seattle circa 2020—come and get your heroin "booty bump" injection kit:
We have a phenomenon like that in Mississippi. It took me 40 of my years to ask why, in all my life, we aren't doing better at something, anything? Education, health, money, just one. I asked my son what he thought, and he opened my eyes. He said the people in charge here do not WANT a healthy, educated, well-off population. We produce furniture and sweet potatoes and corn and cotton. You need people to be poor and stupid to do all that work in order to survive. It was like a light came on in my brain. Powerful people need robotic people.
Student loans are an entire can of worms that many people don't understand. I was told by a former student that they must sign a "Master Promissory Note" to the school. And the school can then just add debt to the student's bill whenever they need to. My friend caught the Univ of WA adding debt to her loan balance when she had already been UNENROLLED to the school. She won, but it cost her attorney's fees to get out of the swindle. Don't believe everything you read about students being stupid.
All that can be true, but then why is our incompetent federal government in charge of dolling out finances for college study? Just another excuse for the feds to be in our jammies. Not to mention The School to be in on the grift.
Much like programs ostensibly intended to "make home ownership more affordable!", programs supposedly intended to "make college more affordable!" boil down to making it easier to take out bigger loans.
An indebted populace is easier to control. Lose your job, and there's no way to pay the nut on your mortgage or your student loan note.
Yep, but no matter how screwed up it is, it's still not our neighbor's responsibility to pay for it. If there are pervasive predatory practices, lawyers can drive class action suits, and just a few wins there can change an industry.
The federal government could cancel All outstanding U.S. student loans retroactively and the only noticeable financial affect would be a lot of people with more money spending it and a lot of others receiving payments and fees that they wouldn't otherwise receive and a lot of people selling goods and services that otherwise would not be sold.
What a crock. No, the noticeable financial effect would be additional billions of debt our grandchildren will have to pay off, an excuse for future bailouts of predictably left-wing voters, and the feeling of most Americans that their debts don't matter, ergo they don't matter. If we're going to subsidize someone, I'd rather subsidize plumbers, electricians, framers, farmers, scientists and first responders, not a bunch of gamers with useless degrees in multicultural studies.
When they have nothing else, which is the standard fare, they pull out the “isms”.
Everything they accuse us of is what they are.Racist, antisemitic, sexist, divide, a threat to democracy, not paying their fair share, violent, corrupt, divisive, tyrannical, corporate owned,fascist…
Not that the “ Conservatives” are much better. They’re just slightly less awful.
The hell? Educating our children is a price we pay for living in a society. The fact that, like everything else a society needs to thrive, it has been turned into a profit centered scam is besides the point. Those loans were illegitmate to being with. Education should be free.
Like so many reasonable notions, this common one misses important context and specification.
There is nothing wrong with the public investing in an educated populace, but like all investments, there should be a reasonable expectation of ROI.
Like everything else, there is a marketplace which rather accurately indicates what society is in need of, and what it is not. Rather than denigrate certain oft-beaten disciplines, I'll just say that society only needs so many philosophy majors, yes? On the other hand, our society *desperately* needs people in all STEM related fields and so this would be an obvious ROI for those who successfully manage to complete AND enter that field.
The qualification at the end is an important element to this, of course, for there must be skin in the game for all involved with investments. One must truly believe they are capable of and committed to entering their chosen field, lest they be on the hook for anything invested in that venture otherwise.
Unfortunately, like so many hotly debated issues, they are thought of and parsed on white and black terms, which of course, is beyond stupid and unproductive.
One of the many things that annoys be about these conversations is the assumption that college graduates are necessarily educated, and that non-college graduates necessarily aren’t.
College education has NOTHING to do with intelligence. At least, not until you get into the Masters and up. It just means you know a little about 1 single subject. Intelligence can be had with or without a degree and true common sense comes from people with lived experience, meaning 30's and up.
When I went to college it was still OK to pursue a liberal arts education. I was like a kid in a candy store picking out my courses. Philosophy, Logic, Astronomy, Communications, History, etc. Nowadays it's so expensive you have to pigeonhole into some specialty. I got most of my real education afterwards, going to sea for over 27 years and doing A LOT of reading. Having two or three letters after your name means absolutely nothing these days for indicating real intelligence.
Correct. Lol. My son duel-majored in English and Linguistics, pandemic hit, he took a job as a teacher (never even took an education class), taught in a low income district for 2 years ( we didn't close schools here). He did this while getting a "free" Masters in Teaching (not education). He never wanted to teach, so he saved his money from his teaching gig, went to study for a Masters in Psychology in Liverpool, England. He's highly educated. Guess what he's doing? He's part owner of our family business (diesel truck repair), makes more money than he could ever make until he gets more degrees, doesn't owe a penny, but also very happy just working in something he knows and around people he likes. He's 25. I guess it was good for the future??? Maybe. But, even with all that education, he still has lots to learn. Lots! About life. He may be smarter than his dad and I on paper, but life???? Hahaha! Not even close.
H.G. Wells tried to warn us, sadly we're still doomed to remain on the path you've described until more working people wake up, put aside their petty differences, and reject the corporate-controlled despots who run this country.
We need to STOP playing the numbers game. Consider the following, in tandem:
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
― Margaret Mead
This, I've come to conclude, is the defining error of almost all left-wing activism (perhaps Marx/Engels are to blame): Acting in the foregone conclusion that assembling and mobilizing the biggest army is the paramount concern. That'll never work, for the reasons Wilde articulated - and for the reasons Mead articulated, it's totally unnecessary.
Correct. Our meritocracy has swiftly given way to the truth about our public education system. Public education, because it is free, is not valued. It is an inherently socialist system. While raising my sons, I did 2 things. I read to them from birth until age 10. I moved to different districts to allow them to go to the best schools, and I taught them at home. If they were little now, no way I'd send them to public.
Public K-12 education is THE civil rights issue of our time. Schools need to be de-unionized. It's slavery. These kids are chained by an abysmal education that will haunt them their entire lives, and undermine our society as well.
Civil rights issue of our time? Sounds critical. Well, then, what's your remedy for this "issue of our time?" What sort of "de-unionized" educational system are we thinking will make the grade for our next generation of students so they don't become abysmal-education-chained kids?
And I should think that an entire generation carrying around nightmares of 5th-grade recess and high school locker searches has already undermined our "society." If not our civilization and tax base.
Bullshit. Eduction is a human right, and privatizing it is the WORST thing we can do. If we decoupled school funds from zip codes and provided an actually equal education to ALL citizens, this would be a far healthier society. (I live in Europe. Private schools are primarily for children who can’t cut the rigor of public schooling.)
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but public schools have been, and continue to be, quite successful in many states that aren't Mississippi. And sending your kids to segregation academies doesn't help either.
right, when your definition of success is to get a job and make millions from a situation that takes advantage of and propsers off of the usg's rampant counterfeiting operation and on top of that making sure your are anally smug and sure of your superiority for having done so.
No, Marcuse and Adorno. Marx and Engels failed to understand the working class beyond it's usefulness as a theoretical political widget, so their reformers shifted their aim to identity groups and the revolution became cultural.
Good question. They are responsible because the Marxist deeply flawed dehumanizing, mechanistic, worldview justifies anyone who can somehow claim they are "oppressed" or "marginalized" acquires power over those they accuse of being their oppressors. Sadly that paradigm, disconnected from any other morality, allows anything, including mental disease or social contagion, to acquire dangerous power. Power that defies, but never defeats, reality.
Most people refuse to listen to their youngers. I've received quite an education from my children. You just have to listen to them. Hey, c'mon up to the other end of the river, Minnesota.
thats right. and thats why public education will only ever spit out a few types of people. corporate asswhole psychopaths, dryball cogs for the machine of govt, or dependent cattle class. this is the structure of the current human ecology and it runs on the engine of counterfeiting and corruption.
This is generally true, but those who manage to survive their 12 years by following their own interests with the help of an apolitical or conservative teacher/mentor (an endangered species) have always been with us.
There may be nefarious powers allayed against Mississippi, but the citizens of the state need to take some responsibility. Maybe if they hadn't spent centuries trying to perfect hateful ignorance, some progress could have been made.
Excellent comment. Today’s plantations, full of dependents who need the next fix of government programs that never improve anything, but keep people dependent with sub-standard schools and depleted self-respect. And they are fearful that the government program will end, so they vote blue.
The education system is about learning a lot of approved facts and then reflecting them back to the teachers and examiners. The purpose of that is to indoctrinate people, and to give them accreditation so that they are educated enough to be useful employees. It’s not about making people critical thinkers.
If being able to see what is, is a necessary characteristic of a sentient being, ask yourself if these people are even alive. And I speak first of the Bumps of this world.
Bump and his kind seem to be responding to sensory input, so possibly non-sentient is not the proper description. Yet the puzzling characteristic they lack seems to go beyond the ability to think critically. Perhaps it is self-awareness?
Elitist arrogance without substance. It’s excruciating. These patronizing bastards are useless. They can’t change a tire, plumb a toilet, lay a brick, replace a fuse, fry an egg, discern a radiator from a battery, fix a leaky pipe… They’re worthless stooges who take up space and usurp oxygen.I can’t stand the press or the pundit class left or right . The presumption that they are speaking for me. I don’t recall being asked what they so fervently claim.By anybody.
The “ we” part. How often do they not only state as fact what matters most to us that doesn’t and fail to cover what does? Because I voted (R) does not mean I supported overturning R v W, believe that there is no such thing as a tiny percentage of people who are born in the wrong body.. that their hard wiring doesn’t match their chromosomal mandate. I don’t worship Reagan. I don’t believe they are doing a bang up job, I don’t support hyper-religiosity in government forums, public schools. Nor do I support ANY leftist ideology.
Fix what’s broken, end the wars, expose the WEF Great Reset, expose and purge the corruption throughout, secure the border, audit every dollar spent by government, abolish the CIA, Fed, FBI, IRS, FISA, Patriot Act, CFIUS, TSA, Dept of Education, War On Drugs, Emergency Authorization Act, funding of private universities , corporations, think tanks, media outlets, social media,bailouts, dangerous biorearch, all funding of research outside the US,NGOs, religious orgs,lobbying, special perqs for every government entity, qualified immunity for any governmental/federal entity, withdraw from the UN, WHO,NATO.WEF, Bilderberg Group Term limits whether Congressional, bureaucracy, judiciary…
Purge at least half the Deep State prosecute every bad actor in government and seize their assets until every penny is paid back to the taxpayer.
Protect our nation our citizens from invasion and actual criminality , fix our failing infrastructure Stop forcing dogma down our throats, leave our kids alone..Leave us the hell alone to live our lives in peace.
We were able to manage our lives with far less tumult and divide with far less government in years prior and we can do it again, far more effectively.
You might be giving them more credit than they deserve. But I’m not them, so don’t know. This should be a golden age for psychologists trying to figure that out.
I think its worse than that. I think he knows the truth and is intentionally lying about it because he somehow thinks its for the greater good. But people who are willing to commit evil for their supposed greater good, are themselves evil.
This is what Theodore Dalrymple has been saying. The purpose of propaganda, lying in general, is not merely to get you to believe that something is true that isn't, it's to get you to say something is true that you know is not true. At that point you become complicit in the lying, you become part of the evil that is called lying. Back in the day we used to say "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem." Today nothing could be truer than that.
I read his quote the other day explaining that idea with the soviets. But the part he somewhat left out, in what I read, is in both Soviet and even Nazi society, there were harsh punishments for stating the truth. Here, there's some social punishment but nothing of similar magnitude. It makes it somewhat understandable to go along with the lie when your life is on the line, but what these people are doing now is inexcusable.
With respect, wrong on the most central point - status anxiety drives Bump and Drezner. All the evidence suggests they do not think. Bump and Drezner sense on the most visceral level that the Queens accent and the movement Trump represents are existential threats to every part of their "essential to society" identities. Both are driven by pats on the head from "authorities." Neither believes important lessons can be learned from the fact that much of what we all believe might be wrong.
Both function to advance blind faith in authoritarian agendas dressed-up as "compassion" and "the science" - and to deflect and discourage critical self-examination, enlightenment, and progress. Both have glimpsed themselves in the mirror and are terrified by what they see. Both understand down to their cores who they really are, and what function they perform. Scares them shitless, as such knowledge should.
Status anxiety is an unhealthy preoccupation with what others think of us - virtually all forms of branding, advertising, and marketing manipulate our fears and desires about our status within a group, before an individual, or a god concept. Old as human history and probably extends to other species - dogs, etc. - hope this helps.
Slightly off-topic - Do animals communicate? Yes. Plants? Maybe. Do either pray?
Obviously I am talking about something which is real and significant to the party that feels threatened by losing it. If you find my choices of words (_class_ and _caste_) I invite you to suggest others. You seem to agree that something real was the subject.
I would've, in fact I tried to, but I apparently slipped a cog while composing what I said before.
It's not a matter of how he's perceived, but his actual, internal ability in conflict with how he gets away with being perceived due to the limits of an inevitably imperfect meritocratic system even when it's working at its best.
Academia SHOULD only reward the truly intelligent - but how does one do that in a manner that everybody can agree on? Consequently, there's a sort of awkward compromise integral to the academic merit system that means not everybody who succeeds within it truly deserves to, nor everyone who fails - this eventually results in a rift between academic "successes" who Get It, and those who Don't Get It, but they APPEAR to be equally qualified since they got the laurels from the same process. We're seeing one of those "moments of reckoning" wherein the bona-fides and the impostors are forced to focus on their differences since something of vital importance has perched upon them.
"The Name that can be named is not the True Name."
You seem to be somewhat ahead of me in examining Mr. Bump and his kind. As a young person I was born into what was to become the PMC (caste?) and so encountered the thing he seems to believe so ardently in at an early age. But in 1960, although we knew very well which side of our bread was buttered, we were smart enough and cynical enough not to worship the butter. It was just _there_ and we happened to be the sufficiently lucky ones to receive it. Of course we were a few years ahead of the Best and the Brightest.... Perhaps Mr. Bump is on the other side of that line, the line of faith.
Glad to see you're reading the Good Book. One of them.
Fredrik deBoer's new book, "How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement" (2023) takes a look at class in terms of various cultural movements. From the Amazon review:
"Hidden beneath the rhetoric of the oppressed and the symbolism of the downtrodden lies the inconvenient fact that those doing the organizing, messaging, protesting, and campaigning are predominantly drawn from this country’s more upwardly mobile educated classes. Poses are more important than policies."
That has been obvious for some time, but the class position of the activist elites doesn't entirely invalidate their concerns or activities. Indeed, their policies and practices may well have been imperial, but you can't run a big empire if you indulge racial, religious, and other preferences before loyalty to the imperium or its current rulers.
Also, you have to take into account he has a history of lying. Lies us into the war in Iraq using his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Comm. He steals other people's speeches, writings, how his wife died, the Martin Luther King marches he was in, but wasn't. Not to mention his egocentric self comparing what went on in Maui to his 2 bit house fire.
From the Onion, yet standard operating procedure for self proclaimed ‘fact checker’ partisan hacks like Bump
“Democrats Say It'll Take A Lot More Than Eyewitness Testimony, Bank Records, Audio, Video, Complete Confessions For Them To Believe Biden Did Anything Wrong”
Actually, I think he's an interesting example of class panic. His case might be worth some analysis since it implies that the present class system is has been much tighter than I thought it was. Apparently if you're dropped out of the PMC (caste) for wrongthink you lose your job/role/position and may fall a long way. Consequently journalists so called are mostly going to toe the line -- the whole line.
"Apparently if you're dropped out of the PMC (caste) for wrongthink you lose your job/role/position and may fall a long way."
This is why I think we're living under a kind of soft totalitarianism. Soft totalitarianism regimes are uncomfortable with using force and prefer instead to maintain control through narrative management, the manipulation of language, and hegemonic control of culture. While hard totalitarianism depends on inflicting terror and fear of pain on people to force them to conform, soft totalitarianism forces conformity by making people being afraid of losing comfort, status, and employment.
I think you're right and what bothers me, and perhaps people will not agree, that during the Trump years that growing authoritarianism, or totalitarianism, was ever present and in the media, the left, and people in general were in complicity with it, blinded to it not only by their hatred of Trump, but his base as well. Too many on Facebook and other media platforms expressed their contempt for them all to well, and often defined them as an ignorant, amoral lot. The government is using that hate to impose harsh sentences on those that were present on January 6, and they let people go free after committing violent assaults on innocence in the name of justice.
If one directly challenges a legally established authority in its sphere (for example, Jan. 6 challenged the established public order) the authority is likely to respond forcefully and maybe vindictively, because its existence has been impugned, and it's likely to receive public support when it does so (because most of the public desires a reasonable degree of order). Thus during the Sixties Civil Rights and anti-war demonstrators were usually pretty careful to avoid overt acts of violence (or acts which could be construed as violence).
I understand what you're saying and agree that people in general feel very uncomfortable with that degree of disorder. I was watching at the time, and initially saw hundreds of people led into the Capital through it's front doors, by the capital police. Most people however were standing around doing nothing in particular other then looking curiously about. I saw the horned one in the Capital, smiling, and as Tucker showed on his last night on FOX, he was escorted by police and seemed to be having a non violent time. I don't remember seeing people breaking windows although I know they did, but I did see Brian Sicknick beat about the head, and they did say initially he died of the wounds inflicted, but he wasn't beaten. Did I imagine that? He went home unscathed, and died of a stroke. So confusing. Ebbs seemed to be giving directions on attacking the Capital yet never charged as far as I know, while others have been given unduly harsh sentences. For me the disorder was defined before the riot by the unlawful dedication to remove Trump from office on the lie of Russia gate, a lie pushed and supported by the democrats, the media, including the left. Celebrities called for his death, and their threats were seen as humorous and readily accepted. Oh and the impeachments. No one was held accountable for the lie of Russia-gate which took three years to see the light of day does make me wonder if Jan 6 was just the icing on the cake they prepared for Trump. They call it an insurrection, but it's better called a riot, and it didn't really scare me, but the democrats who worked in complicity with others to remove an elected president from office did. I wonder why so many people were, and remain blind to the chaos that preceded that day.
You raise a number of issues which are somewhat beyond my immediate concern (above). There, I'm principally trying to understand what some would call TDS as it affects people such as Mr. Bump, who seems to have religious faith in his beliefs. Surely it is not a surprise to find authoritarianism in Academia, although sometimes oddly colored; the Education Industry is based fundamentally on the principles of (1) sequestered knowledge (which raises its price) and (2) credentialism, which is usually a pure exercise of hierarchical or bureaucratic power. What I find odd in Mr. Bump is his lack of critical resistance to the Industry's propaganda, which in previous eras I found even in its most devoted servants. For instance, the term "politically correct" was originally activist-lesbian or feminist gibe at Maoists.
Also I am not happy with reifying the Left into a coherent organism. The Left may be a sensibility or a "side", but it is not coherent. If it has been bourgeoisified (aligned with power) as you suggest it is no longer Left (in my opinion).
Curiously I find that Taibbi and Kern this week* are now on about something similar to Mr. Bump's devotion, the way in which comedy has assumed uncomedic monotony, under the influence I suppose of what we might call "liberal totalitarianism." Doesn't this make liberals uncomfortable? I guess not. In fact, I guess I'm being pretty redundant.
* America This Week, September 8, 2023: "Comedy is Not Pretty"
This dude covering his eyes and ears like two thirds of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkey caricature set is comical. Complete circular logic. I listened to that podcast and all he had was “you’re not listening to me, I’m telling you what the facts are - you choose not to believe the facts as I dictate them to you, how dare you try and present facts that I’ve clearly stated aren’t factual”. Full. Blown. Clown. World.
As a thought: Some of our problem is not being able to accept that there really is no there there. We keep trying to take the airball seriously because it's socially credentialed and we want a legitimate truth/fact based national dialogue. Then we find ourselves shocked at discovering that we are shouting into a vacuum. It's crazy making. The Democratic performance at the Taibbi/Shellenberger hearings and a dozen more well publicized non-event debates of that type are frightening because it exposes the realization that truthful reality is hidden somewhere behind the theatre of the spectacle.
Interesting, I believe Matt wrote about kayfabe in Hate Inc. when describing disingenuous politicians pretending to hate the other team, but actually playing well together behind closed doors. And not playing well together for the people that voted for them, playing well for the betterment of the donors.
And you've missed the fact that Matt has followed that same model? Go read what Rolling Stone was publishing while he was there. Some of the most legendary liberal gobbledygook ever. Campus rapes, Climate Change, yada, yada, yada. Now he's Mr Twitter files and can't believe what those crazy liberals are saying. Because he stopped saying it a full 5 minutes ago. Recently he's said things that I tend to agree with more, but it's still mostly safe stuff and it doesn't offset the past. Matt was a football player who took Journalism. In my experience this is a common story that is always about staying academically eligible. None of this points towards someone I should want defining my world view. The moral of this whole story is stick to the info and don't make gurus out of the messengers.
I was going to recommend it. I'm just about to watch the last hour. Matt's article now, and Eric both seem to point to our being held captive to a false narrative. We need new eyes and a new national dialogue. And, I seriously believe it's possible and I believe it carries with it the change we're seeking.
I watched that a couple of days ago. Hadn’t seen Chris Williamson until maybe a month or two ago when the algorithm presented him on my feed, but I appreciate his conversational style and have caught up on his podcast history. Eric Weinstein can be a bit esoteric (aka I’m not very bright) at times and I don’t always agree with his takes - but on balance he seems like a good dude who’s paying attention and trying to make a positive difference; and wake people the hell up - and he and his brother are both intelligent as all get out.
I am sure you are bright or you wouldn't be reading/listening to the thinking pieces MT and CW put out. Eric is just thinking on a different plane that the rest of us. He is hard for most people - including myself - to follow, but the effort is worth it.
I think the etymology is a bastardized pig latin for "Fake". I first heard it in relation to professional wrestling, but it's even more applicable to US politics.
The Democrats are the whacko party. The only way the whacko party can exist is if the other party is the stupid party. The Republicans are the stupid party. The stupid party enables the whacko party. Without the stupid party, the whacko party would fall apart. Example of the stupid party: A party that loses because of its stand on abortion that abortion should be outlawed.
This is so well said and so spot on. Far more than the article itself I daresay. If you've never seen it you should watch the amazing documentary "The Minds of Men" by Aaron and Melissa Dykes. Yelling into a vacuous feedback loop is not just an insightful description of current events, but the whole point of the whole thing. So that you have an outlet for your frustration, but nothing ever really changes.
Yep. What floored me when I first read that - and I've still not fully recovered - was how Bump could listen to himself saying that and not immediately think, "Did something that stupid actually come out of my mouth?" On second thought, maybe he's used to it by now.
This is the reason I was interested in a deeper analysis of Bump (and people like him, of whom I know quite a few). It seems they really did become deranged when Trump was elected. One of them literally cried on my shoulder. While I regard Trump as a buffoon -- and the US has endured many buffoons -- this event was taken differently. The thing that seems to make it different is Trump's class or caste as I'm calling it, although other suggestions might be interesting.
Someone From Texas: Yup, thus the decline in readership of these rags. A good sign, because it shows there are still plenty of folks with functioning brains. I, for one, was better off during the Trump years then now, while the mayor of New York was inviting all those folks to come across the border to join them, yet now he's crying they're gonna destroy his city, and being ignored by the Corpse-in-Chief.
Let's not forget that Matt was a soldier in that same army of truth distorting lefty journos until not too long ago. And clearly doesn't have the self awareness to grasp that we all know that. So when he suddenly starts talking about what a fraud it all is, it's just a huge self-own. To be clear, he wrote for Rolling Stone in 2006, when they published the biggest piece of garbage in the history of journalism:. The Global Warming issue. It was actually their 50th anniversary issue too. So they brought in all the hippie heroes for 'retrospectives' that all eventually devolved into frantic bleating about how climate change was going to kill us inside of 10 years. Florida would be underwater. NYC too. Matt was party to all of that. I urge anyone who takes climate change or Matt Taibbi seriously to go revisit that issue.
So while he now wants us to see some enlightened commentary, all I see is a broken watch that just happens to match the current time. Go look at his whole body of work if you have the stomach. This big catharsis he's having in his early 50s is only evidence of what a brainwashed, unintelligent, propagandist buffoon he was for the 50 years leading up to it. The nerve of him to call out another reporter for selling the same pap he sold for over 25 years. And most ironically of all, to call him out for his self righteousness. It's just icky and not smart or enlightened at all.
About five minutes later Noam again brings up media, and Bump says, “But again, you’re attacking the press, because you refuse to listen to what we’re saying.”
Oh, we're listening all right . . . we just don't buy it.
Bump is engaging in multiple logical fallacies over and over. Begging the question (i.e. circular reasoning) and appeal to authority. Construct a logical, cogent argument with independent support and maybe there'd be something worth listening to.
That's a feature, not a bug, of the Bump/Drezner class - which returns us always to the central tenant of the authoritarian - I'm right because I say so - I say so because I'm right, rinse, repeat.
The best I can say about his kind is that they see their beliefs as so self-evident that they really can’t understand any disagreement. To give an example, it’s like when NBC deceptively edited George Zimmerman’s 911 call to make it sound like he volunteered Trayvon Martin’s race rather than giving it in response to the operator asking. They claimed it was just for brevity and I actually believe them. I think they were so sure it was obviously a racist murder that the edit didn’t change the meaning of the call.
When Noam asks, “What’s been debunked?” Bump says, “I’ve written about this!” He adds, “It’s been debunked in the sense that I’ve already addressed this, and presented the counter-arguments to it.”
Well, you know, that's just like uh, your opinion, man.
Indeed, Matt -- i, too, for most of my 50 years identified as a moderate leftist on most issues; I thought that was the team that stood for open-mindedness and a "live and let live" philosophy, which sounded good. But both the Trump presidency and the Covid19 experience has thrown into stark relief what everyone's true priorities and allegiances are. My eyes have been opened, and it seems clear to me as a long-time subscriber that yours have been too. Turns out, our former "friends" care not at all for Truth when it is truly Inconvenient. And yes, these smug comfortable "expert" types really do believe that what they want to be true is, simply because they and all their credentialed (by the Military-Industrial-Big Data Surveillance controlled establishment) say it should be so. We can hope enough of us have unplugged from the Matrix to band together and resist this crap. But I fear they may have successfully divided us along too many lines already... (Hint, folks: stop blaming the national Democratic OR Republican parties -- they're 2 sides of the same rotten corrupt machine.)
Bakelite72: Correct diagnosis, but I disagree that they are capable of dividing us. Virtually everyone I know, and most of the random strangers I meet see through the bullshit. All they have is a weaponized DOJ, IRS, HHS, and so forth, and a vast store of lethal weapons. The only possible way they can destroy us is the same way Hitler established dictatorial powers in a mere eighteen months after becoming chancellor, then president, by sheer terror. They (the National Socialists) were paranoid gangsters, like our political class is becoming. But they won't succeed because we know liberty, and, unlike any other nation in history, the citizenry is well armed.
Exactly. They used to call it brainwashed. All the avid brain washed chair sitters would probably kill themselves if their delusions fell away suddenly. When they suddenly overwhelmed by the depths of depravity they willingly defended and participated in.
"Bump repeatedly tells Noam his problem is that he’s not accepting his, Bump’s, versions of things."
See, if you'd just accept the idea that space aliens or maybe a talking cat deposited the money in Joe Biden's bank account - just because - then there would be no crime. And the WaPo and the NYT assure us - assure us - that this is all totally plausible and in fact, happens every day in comic books.
But at the same time, the same MSM assures us that the Russiagate conspiracy theory is a 169% pure 24K gold article of faith, in spite of being a crackpot conspiracy theory when viewed in light of all available evidence, not to mention basic common sense.
And yet the handwringers are convinced that the game show host should be in jail for trying to steal the election that they stole fair and square with Russiagate and laptop lies. It’s painful to watch.
Bump actually KNOWS that Biden has a talking cat, because he's in possession of the very receipt Erwin Schrödinger gave Biden when he sold him the cat. It was a pretty good deal too; not only could the cat talk, it could deliver speeches by (or for) Neil Kinnock.
I think in fact that the cat got control of Joe Biden and wired him for sound. I chided the cat for this misbehavior and he pointed out he wasn't there. Later, in the email, I received a nice copy of the Cheshire Cat's famous smile which isn't there either. "see?" added Schrödinger's cat. Of course not.
Very strange things happen to people's brains (and very strange things fall from their mouths) once they tie themselves to the mast of certain beliefs but cannot publicly honestly admit their reasons or motivations.
All of us here know the inside of Bump's brain better than he does: his cohort has decided that all things are allowed in the hunt for their Orange/White Whale, that they are sick of listening to the grubby plebs who didn't go to the right schools and don't work for prestige corporations inside the gates of the Imperial City, and they want us to shut up and do, say and vote as we're told by our obvious betters.
But as they can't just come out and say this they have to resort to various lies and tantrums: "I already told you all you need to know about Hunter and his laptop (and every other issue), why can't you just shut up and obey?!"
Democracy™ dies when a WaPo reporter is asked to publicly explain himself.
If someone had told me in 2016 I’d be considering voting for trump in 2024 because he is the lesser of evils I would have laughed in their face. But here I am. Trump’s enemies are making him look like Robin Hood.
They want to be Ministry of Truth/Thought Police and so should be treated as such: manipulative liars who wield words and phrases like weapons to maintain their power and injure their enemies. The MSM delenda est.
I'm open to being shown I'm wrong, but I think this stuff is the best part about the Biden administration. Not all of it can or should be directly attributed to him, but it is happening under his watch. What parts of that article do you have a problem with, outside of its deferential tone?
But where did this fervor come from? This just didn't happen overnight. Who was the architect? All of this media concern over the "threat to democracy." Donald Trump --- really?
Somehow the switch was flipped to "anger" above "change." Like the Taliban blowing up the Buddha statues, the US of A needs to be, just not re-imagined, but taken apart. And the people doing it are Bump and his friends. Talk about "privilege." So righteous.
I don’t think there’s an architect, but I do think one person in particular probably started it all by convincing the corporate press that Trump was the Manchurian Candidate and Russia stole the 2016 election: Hillary.
P.S. Before anyone assumes I’m a Republican, I’m a gay lefty who supports a 4-day work week, abolishing the intelligence agencies, going epic in fighting climate change and raising corporate + rich people’s taxes. :) (Also, read “Shattered” because it’s all there -- and Hillary approved two mainstream reporters who wrote it, or they wouldn’t have had the access to her and her campaign that they had.
I’ve read through “Shattered” twice, and lived through it once, and it is a very well written book that really captures how out of touch Hillary was. She valued loyalty over competence and that burned her.
Huma was quadruple dipping at one point, getting paychecks from the state department, directly from Hillary as her PA, from the CGI for her important work there, and from State again as an independent consultant......
Thomas Dodson: While Hillary bears a great share of the blame, it is the "intelligence" community who calls the shots. The Clintons have been CIA assets since their Arkansas days.
Many books have been and will continue to be written about this.
I will take a crack: we already had a society fractured by decades of financialization, globalization, secularization, mass immigration and a possibly unprecedented level of technological churn, with the basic end result being a society of addled and deracinated consumers instead of citizens.
This main fissure has been described as Progressive/Conservative Somewhere/Anywhere globalists/nationalists (these have opened up throughout the West). But throw in social media, which seems designed to make people hate each other, add the college-educated becoming disciples of the new secular religion Social Justice, and thus the 2 sides no longer see anything in common w the other or any reason to tolerate the other.
Trump is both a symptom and a match thrown into a dry field.
Elite overproduction, according to Turchin. See his book “End Times”. When stagnating wages mean the plebes get a smaller and smaller fraction of the growing GDP, you get more aspiring elites than there are positions of authority to fill, so they go after each other in a desperate frenzy.
My idea (so far) is that the PMC (caste) is in charge of Truth (as in "follow the science") and must not be contradicted. A certain religious organization I shall omit naming put it this way: "Error does not have the same rights as Truth."
It goes back to 1800 and Adams defeat by Jefferson. Jefferson believed in evolution and a new constitution for every generation. The AMERICAN Style historians say Adams finally conceded but in 2023 it is still hearsay.
This. I was listening to Maher on Rogan's podcast and he seemed to imply that it's an inherent truth that Trump is a "crazy, stupid, criminal" - and he repeated several mainstream media talking points after having JUST derided the mainstream media on several other points. For some reason there's this religious level of belief in how bad Trump is that seems weird and cult-ish.
I saw that too and was struck at how manic Maher was when he spouted his scripture on Trump. Almost like he couldn't break out of his cognitive dissonance but somewhere in his brain, he knows it's crazy.
I thought Rogan would make a better argument for the hypocrisy of tds victims and democracy/fascism caterwauling. Superdelegates, Bernie getting robbed twice, Russia gate, laptop lies, etc
It’s worth noting that such zealotry was in full effect long before Jan. 6.
There was similar fervor regarding George W. Bush during his presidency but it’s clear to me that social media allowed the anti-Trump hysteria to escalate to End Times levels.
Yes, even though it galls me now that my parents supported George W. Bush because he was “pro life” (what a farce!), and even though I was only an adolescent during his presidency, I do recall the constant vilification and hatred in the media toward him.
But now they trot him out with the Obamas as if it never happened. I doubt Trump will ever be sitting next to the Clintons at the funeral of another dead warmonger, though.
i don't consider those that wallow in it, victims. they actively embrace it, as it gives them a sense of superiority over the lesser mortals. its a virtue signaling badge of honor!
Maher is dope-deluded dunce incapable of critical thought. His "opinions" paper over the fact that that he's multi-millionaire trapped in the world of the rich.
This interview with Bump just highlights that he either has no idea what is really going on or is plainly being deceitful. Neither option is acceptable for a guy in his role. It just shows that none of these propagandists can even defend the stances they take as they are not based in objective truth, nor are the issues even well understood by the narrative propagators.
I'd go with the second option. He is being plainly deceitful, because defending Team Blue (his tribe) is more important than seriously examining evidence if it puts his tribe in a bad light.
Maybe he is just delusional and cannot see it. THere are so many who are. Trump fans are routinely told that is their problem which of course is the usual projection.
I think there are plenty of people on the left and the right who consider tribal membership more important than examining evidence based rational arguments. Sometimes there is no one to root for.
Skip. Let us all stop using the “tribe” trope. Overused to the extreme. And disrespectful to ( as usual) to the Indians in this country. Or ( old term) Native Americans that truly do have tribes.
The term _tribe_ goes back to the ancient world, where it denoted part of the political organization of early Rome. It does not refer particularly to American Indians, who should probably be referred to as nations, as they do in Canada. The Indians also used some equivalent term, hence "The Five Nations", an American Indian confederation.
I have no intention to offend Native Americans. I use the word in a broader sense. I am 67 years old, and I grew up with a thicker skin than the "woke" generation.
How about a third option ---- he writes stuff for one of the Great Newspapers so he is A Celebrity! He is so cool and has to share his coolness with the rest of us, so --- do the podcast, any podcast! Celebrity journalism. Probably will be in The Front Row at the next White House correspondents' dinner, wearing a mask, of course.
I think you nailed the core problem about the "blue bubble" view of Trump as an "anti-God" -- in fact, one could make a serious argument that the decline of media was stoked ever since Trump's ascent to the White House in 2017. They lost their collective minds and all their bad decisions, their sins of omissions, their propagandist missives about Biden and Democrats -- all of these are driven by the singular goal of banning Trump from the public square (and the White House).
The media feels that they are in a war (against Trump) and nothing less than our country is at stake. And as Sen. Hiram Johnson said over 100 years ago, "The first casualty of war is truth" and the media's goal is no longer truth but defeating their enemies.
Unfortunately, the MSM have been very successful in their war against truth. I do not have a single friend on the left with whom I can discuss politics. For the most part, they are college-educated professionals--ignorant of what is going on, devoid of curiosity, obedient to all establishment dictates, and filled with media-fueled loathing of Republicans.
I don't believe France has anything like the politico-religious zealotry currently all the rage in the US. French people are far more realistic about the nature of their government. And the French propaganda machine is a pale comparison to the US Ministry of Truth. US citizens are continuously told that the only thing that matters is race and gender. France has yet to hit Peak Orwell.
Having lived in France myself, I agree completely.
Americans were taught (until recently) that discussing politics is taboo, while French people just find the subject to be a rousing bit of dinner time conversation.
Although I find the preponderance of globalist lefties there too high for my liking, it’s true that their propaganda machines have nothing on the American “intelligence” “community” and the Deep State.
Americans really are some of the most propagandized people on earth.
If they succeed in banning him from the public square, they’re gonna spend the next 30-40 years reminding us how they defeated the great evil and it doesn’t matter that they empowered a bunch of unelected technocratic authoritarians to run the administration of a deeply corrupt sock-puppet president.
I wouldn't say that it started with Trump, but once Trump was elected then the MSM stopped even pretending to put on a face of objectivity. Any slander, however insane, any insinuation, no matter how far-fetched, became fair game. Because Trump.
Things went warp-speed upon Trump's victory, but leftist media has always had a holier-than-thou, foot-stamping streak that demands deference to The Narrative, truth be damned.
Good book by a former (1980s) Guardian writer Melanie Phillips on her journey out of it.
The near complete lack of interest in the IRS Whistleblowers' testimony is unique in American history.
2 highly regarded IRS agents revealed bank records showing $17 million dollars paid to 9 different Biden family members, including kids, siblings, teen grandkids and a guidance counselor in law, by multiple foreign corporations. The payments were churned thru 20 shell corps and generated 170 suspicious activity reports (SAR). The vast majority of Americans will never have one SAR in their lifetime. Have more than a couple and many banks will refuse your business. The Biden clan had 170. Later another $3 million dollars in similar payments were found.
The payments were made without contracts or invoices. It remains unclear if appropriate taxes were paid. Some payments followed phone calls or suppers with Joe. All were made while Joe was VP. No Biden has claimed the bank records are erroneous or fraudulent. No explanation as to what the Biden teenagers and the Guidance Counselor in law, did to earn paydays from half way around the world. The only Dem defense has been, everything is kosher because there was no direct deposit into Joe's account.
If that is the new standard, working in DC is about to be a lot more lucrative. An Israeli Corp can send each of Ted Cruz's daughters a million bucks int their college accounts, days before Cruz lobbies for more Israeli aid, and everything is fine? Understand not being a Trump fan, but this wasn't a sweetheart deal on a beach house remodel. This could easily be the largest bribery scandal in the US Executive Branch ever, and not one journalist seems interested in investigating. Can you please explain that Matt?
It reminds me of a passage in George MacDonald's novel, "Thomas Wingfold: Curate":
"When I say that she came near thinking, I say more for her than any but the few who know what thinking is will understand, for that which chiefly distinguishes man from those he calls the lower animals is the faculty he most rarely exercises. True, Helen supposed she could think—like other people, because the thoughts of other people had passed through her in tolerable plenty, leaving many a phantom conclusion behind; but this was THEIR thinking, not hers. She had thought no more than was necessary now and then to the persuasion that she saw what a sentence meant, after which, her acceptance or rejection of what was contained in it, never more than lukewarm, depended solely upon its relation to what she had somehow or other, she could seldom have told how, come to regard as the proper style of opinion to hold upon things in general."
It's absurd for Phillip Bump to say, "I already debunked that idea," when the real statement should be, "I already presented a counter-argument to that idea." As much as I hate using the term, "debunking" is a way of saying, "I've proven you wrong." A counter-argument is just that: A different explanation for the same set of facts. For Bump to say that just because he states an opinion that it's automatically factual is as dishonest as Dr Anthony Fauci stating, "I am science!" and implying that what he said was automatically true.
Just as anyone who assures you "I'm honest" is sketchy as hell, anyone who claims "I'm an expert" is most likely a font of BS and deliberately cultivated ignorance.
(also bunkum, US /ˈbʌŋ.kəm/ UK /ˈbʌŋ.kəm/) complete nonsense or something that is not true: Most economists think his theories are sheer bunk.
If it makes you feel any better about coming up short once again, I am unquestionably an asshole. Even if I'm privy to the various meanings of bunk but don't think the word itself is "elegant or classy." Bank on that, baby. You funny.
Unless the repudiation of the Democratic Party by the voting nation is crystal clear in 2024 --- and how can that be when all election systems are being set up to only facilitate one result.
If Trump wins, I somehow doubt these people will top off a half decade of increasingly hysterical warnings and unprecedented actions by slinking off in defeat. I’m worried that, one of these days, their capacity for action might catch up to their capacity for excuses.
They won't let him back in. It's amazing how few people have remarked on the extraordinary fact that much of the national security state and the military brass coalesced in their opposition to Trump (off the top of my head: general Milley, Matthis, McChrystal). These generals were or became his fiercest critics. In the unlikely event that Trump overcame the election fortification, do you think these people would stand down? I fear the worst.
And ... they work for people who aren’t as interested in informing the public as they are in supporting the ruling class they are a part of. I’m sure the top people at the Post have very cozy relationships with the powerful, and get plenty of whispers that then show up in the paper as storylines. If you don’t live inside the bubble, the paper reads like propaganda. The young in their idealism have bought the idea that manipulating the public is somehow more noble than informing them. They themselves are being manipulated and don’t yet know it.
Bump is a fitting example of a mainstream media journalist. Zero curiosity, zero interest in holding power to account unless it's someone who doesn't play for Team Blue. He thinks his job is to be an attorney for Biden.
He is a proud member of the fourth estate fifth column that is destroying this nation from the inside.
The stupider the people are, the easier they are to manipulate, this is why they've gutted the journalism and education. Once you learn genuine critical thinking, you are no use to the powers that shouldn't be. They have every reason to keep you stupid/uninformed/confused/distracted and fighting among yourselves by any means possible—they never taught African American slaves to read either.
It all boils down to this: make life easy for someone and that someone does not grow, does not harden, does not ripen. That person goes into a state of arrested development and becomes a dependent slave - French kissing his master's boots for his next meal. That is what all this social justice & LGBTQ+ nonsense is about, all of this getting rid of Ds and Fs in grading is about, this is what welfare and UBI is about, this is what reality TV and social media is about: to deliberately create a generation of Idiocracy slaves who cannot think for or take care of themselves. This is a real Flyer around seattle circa 2020—come and get your heroin "booty bump" injection kit:
https://tritorch.com/degradation/seattleRectalOpiodInjectionMethod.png
We have a phenomenon like that in Mississippi. It took me 40 of my years to ask why, in all my life, we aren't doing better at something, anything? Education, health, money, just one. I asked my son what he thought, and he opened my eyes. He said the people in charge here do not WANT a healthy, educated, well-off population. We produce furniture and sweet potatoes and corn and cotton. You need people to be poor and stupid to do all that work in order to survive. It was like a light came on in my brain. Powerful people need robotic people.
Your son is a very bright person, Brandy, you must be proud.
"Powerful people need robotic people."
That hits the nail right on the head!
Yeah, but the robotic people are now the ones whose student loans we are supposed to write-off before they label us racist, etc.
Student loans are an entire can of worms that many people don't understand. I was told by a former student that they must sign a "Master Promissory Note" to the school. And the school can then just add debt to the student's bill whenever they need to. My friend caught the Univ of WA adding debt to her loan balance when she had already been UNENROLLED to the school. She won, but it cost her attorney's fees to get out of the swindle. Don't believe everything you read about students being stupid.
All that can be true, but then why is our incompetent federal government in charge of dolling out finances for college study? Just another excuse for the feds to be in our jammies. Not to mention The School to be in on the grift.
Much like programs ostensibly intended to "make home ownership more affordable!", programs supposedly intended to "make college more affordable!" boil down to making it easier to take out bigger loans.
An indebted populace is easier to control. Lose your job, and there's no way to pay the nut on your mortgage or your student loan note.
Yep, but no matter how screwed up it is, it's still not our neighbor's responsibility to pay for it. If there are pervasive predatory practices, lawyers can drive class action suits, and just a few wins there can change an industry.
The federal government could cancel All outstanding U.S. student loans retroactively and the only noticeable financial affect would be a lot of people with more money spending it and a lot of others receiving payments and fees that they wouldn't otherwise receive and a lot of people selling goods and services that otherwise would not be sold.
What a crock. No, the noticeable financial effect would be additional billions of debt our grandchildren will have to pay off, an excuse for future bailouts of predictably left-wing voters, and the feeling of most Americans that their debts don't matter, ergo they don't matter. If we're going to subsidize someone, I'd rather subsidize plumbers, electricians, framers, farmers, scientists and first responders, not a bunch of gamers with useless degrees in multicultural studies.
What is your opinion on the resentment felt by those who have paid off their loans toward those who would have them erased by the feds?
When they have nothing else, which is the standard fare, they pull out the “isms”.
Everything they accuse us of is what they are.Racist, antisemitic, sexist, divide, a threat to democracy, not paying their fair share, violent, corrupt, divisive, tyrannical, corporate owned,fascist…
Not that the “ Conservatives” are much better. They’re just slightly less awful.
"too much -isms and -schisms"
~Bob Marley, Rasta talking point
The hell? Educating our children is a price we pay for living in a society. The fact that, like everything else a society needs to thrive, it has been turned into a profit centered scam is besides the point. Those loans were illegitmate to being with. Education should be free.
Like so many reasonable notions, this common one misses important context and specification.
There is nothing wrong with the public investing in an educated populace, but like all investments, there should be a reasonable expectation of ROI.
Like everything else, there is a marketplace which rather accurately indicates what society is in need of, and what it is not. Rather than denigrate certain oft-beaten disciplines, I'll just say that society only needs so many philosophy majors, yes? On the other hand, our society *desperately* needs people in all STEM related fields and so this would be an obvious ROI for those who successfully manage to complete AND enter that field.
The qualification at the end is an important element to this, of course, for there must be skin in the game for all involved with investments. One must truly believe they are capable of and committed to entering their chosen field, lest they be on the hook for anything invested in that venture otherwise.
Unfortunately, like so many hotly debated issues, they are thought of and parsed on white and black terms, which of course, is beyond stupid and unproductive.
Teachers must be paid, facilities must be built and paid for. Nothing is free. Somebody must pay.
can be extended to colonialism
One of the many things that annoys be about these conversations is the assumption that college graduates are necessarily educated, and that non-college graduates necessarily aren’t.
College education has NOTHING to do with intelligence. At least, not until you get into the Masters and up. It just means you know a little about 1 single subject. Intelligence can be had with or without a degree and true common sense comes from people with lived experience, meaning 30's and up.
When I went to college it was still OK to pursue a liberal arts education. I was like a kid in a candy store picking out my courses. Philosophy, Logic, Astronomy, Communications, History, etc. Nowadays it's so expensive you have to pigeonhole into some specialty. I got most of my real education afterwards, going to sea for over 27 years and doing A LOT of reading. Having two or three letters after your name means absolutely nothing these days for indicating real intelligence.
I've always wanted to go to the same sort of college Plato did. Or Aristotle. Or William Shakespeare. Or George Washington. Or Abraham Lincoln.
Correct. Lol. My son duel-majored in English and Linguistics, pandemic hit, he took a job as a teacher (never even took an education class), taught in a low income district for 2 years ( we didn't close schools here). He did this while getting a "free" Masters in Teaching (not education). He never wanted to teach, so he saved his money from his teaching gig, went to study for a Masters in Psychology in Liverpool, England. He's highly educated. Guess what he's doing? He's part owner of our family business (diesel truck repair), makes more money than he could ever make until he gets more degrees, doesn't owe a penny, but also very happy just working in something he knows and around people he likes. He's 25. I guess it was good for the future??? Maybe. But, even with all that education, he still has lots to learn. Lots! About life. He may be smarter than his dad and I on paper, but life???? Hahaha! Not even close.
Yes. This.
Hey we may agree on something.
H.G. Wells tried to warn us, sadly we're still doomed to remain on the path you've described until more working people wake up, put aside their petty differences, and reject the corporate-controlled despots who run this country.
We need to STOP playing the numbers game. Consider the following, in tandem:
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
― Oscar Wilde
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
― Margaret Mead
This, I've come to conclude, is the defining error of almost all left-wing activism (perhaps Marx/Engels are to blame): Acting in the foregone conclusion that assembling and mobilizing the biggest army is the paramount concern. That'll never work, for the reasons Wilde articulated - and for the reasons Mead articulated, it's totally unnecessary.
Great comment. These wealthy deep state elitists are not incompetent and are not stupid. THEY ARE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE. It's the plan.
Bingo! It’s all deliberate.
EDUCATION from the beginning. I am sorry to say this but Americans have been uneducated for a LONG time but you did not care to see this.
Correct. Our meritocracy has swiftly given way to the truth about our public education system. Public education, because it is free, is not valued. It is an inherently socialist system. While raising my sons, I did 2 things. I read to them from birth until age 10. I moved to different districts to allow them to go to the best schools, and I taught them at home. If they were little now, no way I'd send them to public.
Public K-12 education is THE civil rights issue of our time. Schools need to be de-unionized. It's slavery. These kids are chained by an abysmal education that will haunt them their entire lives, and undermine our society as well.
Civil rights issue of our time? Sounds critical. Well, then, what's your remedy for this "issue of our time?" What sort of "de-unionized" educational system are we thinking will make the grade for our next generation of students so they don't become abysmal-education-chained kids?
And I should think that an entire generation carrying around nightmares of 5th-grade recess and high school locker searches has already undermined our "society." If not our civilization and tax base.
Any ideas or solutions, Professor Dewey?
Bullshit. Eduction is a human right, and privatizing it is the WORST thing we can do. If we decoupled school funds from zip codes and provided an actually equal education to ALL citizens, this would be a far healthier society. (I live in Europe. Private schools are primarily for children who can’t cut the rigor of public schooling.)
Oh, ok---education is not valued because it's free and it's also "inherently a socialist system."
A trifecta of wrongness. Please reload.
Please, tell me how public school is helping our children here in the United States. Do you believe this is a world class education?
We have Public education in France. It's good.
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you, but public schools have been, and continue to be, quite successful in many states that aren't Mississippi. And sending your kids to segregation academies doesn't help either.
right, when your definition of success is to get a job and make millions from a situation that takes advantage of and propsers off of the usg's rampant counterfeiting operation and on top of that making sure your are anally smug and sure of your superiority for having done so.
Perhaps, given the worldwide reach of woke/gender/Marxist pseudoscience, the easier question is where doesn't the dumbing down happen...
...and Marx and Engels are somehow responsible for the current debates around gender identity? um, how?
No, Marcuse and Adorno. Marx and Engels failed to understand the working class beyond it's usefulness as a theoretical political widget, so their reformers shifted their aim to identity groups and the revolution became cultural.
I'll recommend a primer that will have the resident mineral's panties in a wad: https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Cultural-Revolution-Conquered-Everything/dp/0063227533
Good question. They are responsible because the Marxist deeply flawed dehumanizing, mechanistic, worldview justifies anyone who can somehow claim they are "oppressed" or "marginalized" acquires power over those they accuse of being their oppressors. Sadly that paradigm, disconnected from any other morality, allows anything, including mental disease or social contagion, to acquire dangerous power. Power that defies, but never defeats, reality.
Most people refuse to listen to their youngers. I've received quite an education from my children. You just have to listen to them. Hey, c'mon up to the other end of the river, Minnesota.
An uneducated citizen is the Democrats' best friend.
thats right. and thats why public education will only ever spit out a few types of people. corporate asswhole psychopaths, dryball cogs for the machine of govt, or dependent cattle class. this is the structure of the current human ecology and it runs on the engine of counterfeiting and corruption.
This is generally true, but those who manage to survive their 12 years by following their own interests with the help of an apolitical or conservative teacher/mentor (an endangered species) have always been with us.
There may be nefarious powers allayed against Mississippi, but the citizens of the state need to take some responsibility. Maybe if they hadn't spent centuries trying to perfect hateful ignorance, some progress could have been made.
Slander
Kudos for mentioning the idea of critical thinking.
Excellent comment. Today’s plantations, full of dependents who need the next fix of government programs that never improve anything, but keep people dependent with sub-standard schools and depleted self-respect. And they are fearful that the government program will end, so they vote blue.
The Life of Julia, in real life.
KHP -- I had to look it up. You’re right! Here’s a link: https://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/ppr/vol11/iss1/1/
The education system is about learning a lot of approved facts and then reflecting them back to the teachers and examiners. The purpose of that is to indoctrinate people, and to give them accreditation so that they are educated enough to be useful employees. It’s not about making people critical thinkers.
I don't think the news that dependents of federal programs vote blue has made it to Mississippi yet.
If being able to see what is, is a necessary characteristic of a sentient being, ask yourself if these people are even alive. And I speak first of the Bumps of this world.
NPCs are real - they just don't know it
Bump and his kind seem to be responding to sensory input, so possibly non-sentient is not the proper description. Yet the puzzling characteristic they lack seems to go beyond the ability to think critically. Perhaps it is self-awareness?
Elitist arrogance without substance. It’s excruciating. These patronizing bastards are useless. They can’t change a tire, plumb a toilet, lay a brick, replace a fuse, fry an egg, discern a radiator from a battery, fix a leaky pipe… They’re worthless stooges who take up space and usurp oxygen.I can’t stand the press or the pundit class left or right . The presumption that they are speaking for me. I don’t recall being asked what they so fervently claim.By anybody.
The “ we” part. How often do they not only state as fact what matters most to us that doesn’t and fail to cover what does? Because I voted (R) does not mean I supported overturning R v W, believe that there is no such thing as a tiny percentage of people who are born in the wrong body.. that their hard wiring doesn’t match their chromosomal mandate. I don’t worship Reagan. I don’t believe they are doing a bang up job, I don’t support hyper-religiosity in government forums, public schools. Nor do I support ANY leftist ideology.
Fix what’s broken, end the wars, expose the WEF Great Reset, expose and purge the corruption throughout, secure the border, audit every dollar spent by government, abolish the CIA, Fed, FBI, IRS, FISA, Patriot Act, CFIUS, TSA, Dept of Education, War On Drugs, Emergency Authorization Act, funding of private universities , corporations, think tanks, media outlets, social media,bailouts, dangerous biorearch, all funding of research outside the US,NGOs, religious orgs,lobbying, special perqs for every government entity, qualified immunity for any governmental/federal entity, withdraw from the UN, WHO,NATO.WEF, Bilderberg Group Term limits whether Congressional, bureaucracy, judiciary…
Purge at least half the Deep State prosecute every bad actor in government and seize their assets until every penny is paid back to the taxpayer.
Protect our nation our citizens from invasion and actual criminality , fix our failing infrastructure Stop forcing dogma down our throats, leave our kids alone..Leave us the hell alone to live our lives in peace.
We were able to manage our lives with far less tumult and divide with far less government in years prior and we can do it again, far more effectively.
They are thinking critically, but the response to that thinking is from a different set of objectives than yours.
You might be giving them more credit than they deserve. But I’m not them, so don’t know. This should be a golden age for psychologists trying to figure that out.
Booty Bump Injection Kit... that's going on someone's tombstone.
You spoony wizard, that was a good joke.
Here lies "booty bump"
Took heroin in his rump
The doctor said
"No wonder he's dead"
He had too much junk
In his trunk
Spoony I am, without a doubt
Recognizing my 16-bit allies from my redoubt
Here is my handle, here is my spout...
Okay, that's all I've got. -_-
mehn saying this makes me sick but The Unibomer's Manifesto is kind of happening
What about the fall of The Roman Empire?
The fall of the American Empire is deliberate:
How ESG & Emotional Abusive Schooling Will Achieve the WEF's Great Reset https://bitchute.com/video/vS0ykC9Y20Vt [6:02mins]
CRT Removes the Reason to Try, This is Not Theoretical: Black Lawyer Excoriates Critical Race Theory https://bitchute.com/video/DaS25FLR8ktR [2:04mins]
You do know that James Lindsay is clinically insane, don't you?
Oh this is good. Tell us, who made that diagnosis?
What part of his presentation did you disagree with?
It's a bot - don't help train the AI.
The part where Lindsay thought he was something more than a massage therapist.
I think its worse than that. I think he knows the truth and is intentionally lying about it because he somehow thinks its for the greater good. But people who are willing to commit evil for their supposed greater good, are themselves evil.
This is what Theodore Dalrymple has been saying. The purpose of propaganda, lying in general, is not merely to get you to believe that something is true that isn't, it's to get you to say something is true that you know is not true. At that point you become complicit in the lying, you become part of the evil that is called lying. Back in the day we used to say "if you're not part of the solution you're part of the problem." Today nothing could be truer than that.
I read his quote the other day explaining that idea with the soviets. But the part he somewhat left out, in what I read, is in both Soviet and even Nazi society, there were harsh punishments for stating the truth. Here, there's some social punishment but nothing of similar magnitude. It makes it somewhat understandable to go along with the lie when your life is on the line, but what these people are doing now is inexcusable.
https://www.glibertarians.com/2021/03/of-havels-greengrocer-and-the-necessity-for-ubiquitous-statist-lies/
Banality of evil.
With respect, wrong on the most central point - status anxiety drives Bump and Drezner. All the evidence suggests they do not think. Bump and Drezner sense on the most visceral level that the Queens accent and the movement Trump represents are existential threats to every part of their "essential to society" identities. Both are driven by pats on the head from "authorities." Neither believes important lessons can be learned from the fact that much of what we all believe might be wrong.
Both function to advance blind faith in authoritarian agendas dressed-up as "compassion" and "the science" - and to deflect and discourage critical self-examination, enlightenment, and progress. Both have glimpsed themselves in the mirror and are terrified by what they see. Both understand down to their cores who they really are, and what function they perform. Scares them shitless, as such knowledge should.
Status anxiety is an unhealthy preoccupation with what others think of us - virtually all forms of branding, advertising, and marketing manipulate our fears and desires about our status within a group, before an individual, or a god concept. Old as human history and probably extends to other species - dogs, etc. - hope this helps.
Slightly off-topic - Do animals communicate? Yes. Plants? Maybe. Do either pray?
So it's a class thing? Where class is implicit in their personal identities?
Not really; class, like all communicable group identity, is a granfalloon - what Paul's talking about there, OTOH, is something comparatively REAL.
Obviously I am talking about something which is real and significant to the party that feels threatened by losing it. If you find my choices of words (_class_ and _caste_) I invite you to suggest others. You seem to agree that something real was the subject.
I would've, in fact I tried to, but I apparently slipped a cog while composing what I said before.
It's not a matter of how he's perceived, but his actual, internal ability in conflict with how he gets away with being perceived due to the limits of an inevitably imperfect meritocratic system even when it's working at its best.
Academia SHOULD only reward the truly intelligent - but how does one do that in a manner that everybody can agree on? Consequently, there's a sort of awkward compromise integral to the academic merit system that means not everybody who succeeds within it truly deserves to, nor everyone who fails - this eventually results in a rift between academic "successes" who Get It, and those who Don't Get It, but they APPEAR to be equally qualified since they got the laurels from the same process. We're seeing one of those "moments of reckoning" wherein the bona-fides and the impostors are forced to focus on their differences since something of vital importance has perched upon them.
"The Name that can be named is not the True Name."
- Lao Tzu
You seem to be somewhat ahead of me in examining Mr. Bump and his kind. As a young person I was born into what was to become the PMC (caste?) and so encountered the thing he seems to believe so ardently in at an early age. But in 1960, although we knew very well which side of our bread was buttered, we were smart enough and cynical enough not to worship the butter. It was just _there_ and we happened to be the sufficiently lucky ones to receive it. Of course we were a few years ahead of the Best and the Brightest.... Perhaps Mr. Bump is on the other side of that line, the line of faith.
Glad to see you're reading the Good Book. One of them.
"Straight, square, great,
without purpose, yet everything is furthered."
Fredrik deBoer's new book, "How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement" (2023) takes a look at class in terms of various cultural movements. From the Amazon review:
"Hidden beneath the rhetoric of the oppressed and the symbolism of the downtrodden lies the inconvenient fact that those doing the organizing, messaging, protesting, and campaigning are predominantly drawn from this country’s more upwardly mobile educated classes. Poses are more important than policies."
That has been obvious for some time, but the class position of the activist elites doesn't entirely invalidate their concerns or activities. Indeed, their policies and practices may well have been imperial, but you can't run a big empire if you indulge racial, religious, and other preferences before loyalty to the imperium or its current rulers.
I think you are incorrect. I think they are just people who are actually nuts.
Are either Bump or Drezner aware that their Freudian analyst is posting on the Racket News comment threads about their cases?
You agree with bump, so obviously..
That is the way he comes across. He's not there to inform himself of anything other then to tell you the right and wrong of things.
Also, you have to take into account he has a history of lying. Lies us into the war in Iraq using his position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Comm. He steals other people's speeches, writings, how his wife died, the Martin Luther King marches he was in, but wasn't. Not to mention his egocentric self comparing what went on in Maui to his 2 bit house fire.
From the Onion, yet standard operating procedure for self proclaimed ‘fact checker’ partisan hacks like Bump
“Democrats Say It'll Take A Lot More Than Eyewitness Testimony, Bank Records, Audio, Video, Complete Confessions For Them To Believe Biden Did Anything Wrong”
It was the Babylon Bee.
Oops. My bad. Thank you for not ratting me out to the misinformation authorities. 😬
Bump is a fitting name. As are Tribe, Boot, Bash,Frum,Mitt,Warnock, Crump, Weiner,Fink, Flake, Whitehouse….
Actually, I think he's an interesting example of class panic. His case might be worth some analysis since it implies that the present class system is has been much tighter than I thought it was. Apparently if you're dropped out of the PMC (caste) for wrongthink you lose your job/role/position and may fall a long way. Consequently journalists so called are mostly going to toe the line -- the whole line.
"Apparently if you're dropped out of the PMC (caste) for wrongthink you lose your job/role/position and may fall a long way."
This is why I think we're living under a kind of soft totalitarianism. Soft totalitarianism regimes are uncomfortable with using force and prefer instead to maintain control through narrative management, the manipulation of language, and hegemonic control of culture. While hard totalitarianism depends on inflicting terror and fear of pain on people to force them to conform, soft totalitarianism forces conformity by making people being afraid of losing comfort, status, and employment.
Wrote about this as it relates to the Left's war on language: https://www.euphoricrecall.net/p/the-lefts-war-on-language
I think you're right and what bothers me, and perhaps people will not agree, that during the Trump years that growing authoritarianism, or totalitarianism, was ever present and in the media, the left, and people in general were in complicity with it, blinded to it not only by their hatred of Trump, but his base as well. Too many on Facebook and other media platforms expressed their contempt for them all to well, and often defined them as an ignorant, amoral lot. The government is using that hate to impose harsh sentences on those that were present on January 6, and they let people go free after committing violent assaults on innocence in the name of justice.
If one directly challenges a legally established authority in its sphere (for example, Jan. 6 challenged the established public order) the authority is likely to respond forcefully and maybe vindictively, because its existence has been impugned, and it's likely to receive public support when it does so (because most of the public desires a reasonable degree of order). Thus during the Sixties Civil Rights and anti-war demonstrators were usually pretty careful to avoid overt acts of violence (or acts which could be construed as violence).
I understand what you're saying and agree that people in general feel very uncomfortable with that degree of disorder. I was watching at the time, and initially saw hundreds of people led into the Capital through it's front doors, by the capital police. Most people however were standing around doing nothing in particular other then looking curiously about. I saw the horned one in the Capital, smiling, and as Tucker showed on his last night on FOX, he was escorted by police and seemed to be having a non violent time. I don't remember seeing people breaking windows although I know they did, but I did see Brian Sicknick beat about the head, and they did say initially he died of the wounds inflicted, but he wasn't beaten. Did I imagine that? He went home unscathed, and died of a stroke. So confusing. Ebbs seemed to be giving directions on attacking the Capital yet never charged as far as I know, while others have been given unduly harsh sentences. For me the disorder was defined before the riot by the unlawful dedication to remove Trump from office on the lie of Russia gate, a lie pushed and supported by the democrats, the media, including the left. Celebrities called for his death, and their threats were seen as humorous and readily accepted. Oh and the impeachments. No one was held accountable for the lie of Russia-gate which took three years to see the light of day does make me wonder if Jan 6 was just the icing on the cake they prepared for Trump. They call it an insurrection, but it's better called a riot, and it didn't really scare me, but the democrats who worked in complicity with others to remove an elected president from office did. I wonder why so many people were, and remain blind to the chaos that preceded that day.
Well said, Fran!
Thanks Brad.
You raise a number of issues which are somewhat beyond my immediate concern (above). There, I'm principally trying to understand what some would call TDS as it affects people such as Mr. Bump, who seems to have religious faith in his beliefs. Surely it is not a surprise to find authoritarianism in Academia, although sometimes oddly colored; the Education Industry is based fundamentally on the principles of (1) sequestered knowledge (which raises its price) and (2) credentialism, which is usually a pure exercise of hierarchical or bureaucratic power. What I find odd in Mr. Bump is his lack of critical resistance to the Industry's propaganda, which in previous eras I found even in its most devoted servants. For instance, the term "politically correct" was originally activist-lesbian or feminist gibe at Maoists.
Also I am not happy with reifying the Left into a coherent organism. The Left may be a sensibility or a "side", but it is not coherent. If it has been bourgeoisified (aligned with power) as you suggest it is no longer Left (in my opinion).
Curiously I find that Taibbi and Kern this week* are now on about something similar to Mr. Bump's devotion, the way in which comedy has assumed uncomedic monotony, under the influence I suppose of what we might call "liberal totalitarianism." Doesn't this make liberals uncomfortable? I guess not. In fact, I guess I'm being pretty redundant.
* America This Week, September 8, 2023: "Comedy is Not Pretty"
Lying for your Blue team members pays.
This dude covering his eyes and ears like two thirds of the “see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil” monkey caricature set is comical. Complete circular logic. I listened to that podcast and all he had was “you’re not listening to me, I’m telling you what the facts are - you choose not to believe the facts as I dictate them to you, how dare you try and present facts that I’ve clearly stated aren’t factual”. Full. Blown. Clown. World.
As a thought: Some of our problem is not being able to accept that there really is no there there. We keep trying to take the airball seriously because it's socially credentialed and we want a legitimate truth/fact based national dialogue. Then we find ourselves shocked at discovering that we are shouting into a vacuum. It's crazy making. The Democratic performance at the Taibbi/Shellenberger hearings and a dozen more well publicized non-event debates of that type are frightening because it exposes the realization that truthful reality is hidden somewhere behind the theatre of the spectacle.
Eric Weinstein explored the charade in the recent podcast on Chris Williamson's podcast. It's all kayfabe.
Interesting, I believe Matt wrote about kayfabe in Hate Inc. when describing disingenuous politicians pretending to hate the other team, but actually playing well together behind closed doors. And not playing well together for the people that voted for them, playing well for the betterment of the donors.
And you've missed the fact that Matt has followed that same model? Go read what Rolling Stone was publishing while he was there. Some of the most legendary liberal gobbledygook ever. Campus rapes, Climate Change, yada, yada, yada. Now he's Mr Twitter files and can't believe what those crazy liberals are saying. Because he stopped saying it a full 5 minutes ago. Recently he's said things that I tend to agree with more, but it's still mostly safe stuff and it doesn't offset the past. Matt was a football player who took Journalism. In my experience this is a common story that is always about staying academically eligible. None of this points towards someone I should want defining my world view. The moral of this whole story is stick to the info and don't make gurus out of the messengers.
I was going to recommend it. I'm just about to watch the last hour. Matt's article now, and Eric both seem to point to our being held captive to a false narrative. We need new eyes and a new national dialogue. And, I seriously believe it's possible and I believe it carries with it the change we're seeking.
I watched that a couple of days ago. Hadn’t seen Chris Williamson until maybe a month or two ago when the algorithm presented him on my feed, but I appreciate his conversational style and have caught up on his podcast history. Eric Weinstein can be a bit esoteric (aka I’m not very bright) at times and I don’t always agree with his takes - but on balance he seems like a good dude who’s paying attention and trying to make a positive difference; and wake people the hell up - and he and his brother are both intelligent as all get out.
I am sure you are bright or you wouldn't be reading/listening to the thinking pieces MT and CW put out. Eric is just thinking on a different plane that the rest of us. He is hard for most people - including myself - to follow, but the effort is worth it.
The
Thanks for calling out the podcast, Chris is new to me, Eric is not. Halfway through and enjoying the exchange.
What is Kayfabe?
I think the etymology is a bastardized pig latin for "Fake". I first heard it in relation to professional wrestling, but it's even more applicable to US politics.
A performance that you’re on a team. Like in wrestling with all the costumes and antics.
The WWE term for Kabuki
The Democrats are the whacko party. The only way the whacko party can exist is if the other party is the stupid party. The Republicans are the stupid party. The stupid party enables the whacko party. Without the stupid party, the whacko party would fall apart. Example of the stupid party: A party that loses because of its stand on abortion that abortion should be outlawed.
« L’histoire est une suite de mensonges sur lesquelles on est d’accord. »
Napoléon Bonaparte
This is so well said and so spot on. Far more than the article itself I daresay. If you've never seen it you should watch the amazing documentary "The Minds of Men" by Aaron and Melissa Dykes. Yelling into a vacuous feedback loop is not just an insightful description of current events, but the whole point of the whole thing. So that you have an outlet for your frustration, but nothing ever really changes.
“It’s been debunked in the sense that I’ve already addressed this, and presented the counter-arguments to it.”
This, right there, explains all you need to know about what living in a bubble is really about.
Yep. What floored me when I first read that - and I've still not fully recovered - was how Bump could listen to himself saying that and not immediately think, "Did something that stupid actually come out of my mouth?" On second thought, maybe he's used to it by now.
Haldir: Nailed it. He's become completely separated from both reality and the actual meaning of English words.
This is the reason I was interested in a deeper analysis of Bump (and people like him, of whom I know quite a few). It seems they really did become deranged when Trump was elected. One of them literally cried on my shoulder. While I regard Trump as a buffoon -- and the US has endured many buffoons -- this event was taken differently. The thing that seems to make it different is Trump's class or caste as I'm calling it, although other suggestions might be interesting.
Plain arrogance .
You can imagine a courtier at the Sun King's Court at Versailles addressing a peasant in that manner.
He’s a full blown ass.
Someone From Texas: Yup, thus the decline in readership of these rags. A good sign, because it shows there are still plenty of folks with functioning brains. I, for one, was better off during the Trump years then now, while the mayor of New York was inviting all those folks to come across the border to join them, yet now he's crying they're gonna destroy his city, and being ignored by the Corpse-in-Chief.
What is ironic is that Trump exercises far more influence over the Democrat Party than he ever has over the Republican Party.
Let's not forget that Matt was a soldier in that same army of truth distorting lefty journos until not too long ago. And clearly doesn't have the self awareness to grasp that we all know that. So when he suddenly starts talking about what a fraud it all is, it's just a huge self-own. To be clear, he wrote for Rolling Stone in 2006, when they published the biggest piece of garbage in the history of journalism:. The Global Warming issue. It was actually their 50th anniversary issue too. So they brought in all the hippie heroes for 'retrospectives' that all eventually devolved into frantic bleating about how climate change was going to kill us inside of 10 years. Florida would be underwater. NYC too. Matt was party to all of that. I urge anyone who takes climate change or Matt Taibbi seriously to go revisit that issue.
So while he now wants us to see some enlightened commentary, all I see is a broken watch that just happens to match the current time. Go look at his whole body of work if you have the stomach. This big catharsis he's having in his early 50s is only evidence of what a brainwashed, unintelligent, propagandist buffoon he was for the 50 years leading up to it. The nerve of him to call out another reporter for selling the same pap he sold for over 25 years. And most ironically of all, to call him out for his self righteousness. It's just icky and not smart or enlightened at all.
About five minutes later Noam again brings up media, and Bump says, “But again, you’re attacking the press, because you refuse to listen to what we’re saying.”
Oh, we're listening all right . . . we just don't buy it.
Bump is engaging in multiple logical fallacies over and over. Begging the question (i.e. circular reasoning) and appeal to authority. Construct a logical, cogent argument with independent support and maybe there'd be something worth listening to.
That's a feature, not a bug, of the Bump/Drezner class - which returns us always to the central tenant of the authoritarian - I'm right because I say so - I say so because I'm right, rinse, repeat.
The best I can say about his kind is that they see their beliefs as so self-evident that they really can’t understand any disagreement. To give an example, it’s like when NBC deceptively edited George Zimmerman’s 911 call to make it sound like he volunteered Trayvon Martin’s race rather than giving it in response to the operator asking. They claimed it was just for brevity and I actually believe them. I think they were so sure it was obviously a racist murder that the edit didn’t change the meaning of the call.
We’re listening and we’re disgusted with all the clowns. Bump has become a poster boy for the idiots in so-called journalism now.
Institutional turd polishers.
When Noam asks, “What’s been debunked?” Bump says, “I’ve written about this!” He adds, “It’s been debunked in the sense that I’ve already addressed this, and presented the counter-arguments to it.”
Well, you know, that's just like uh, your opinion, man.
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood!
See,....it's obvious!
That rug really tied the room together, DID IT NOT!
I am the walrus
Dude... 🤣 And, quite apt.
I’m not sure the bums are losing.
Indeed, Matt -- i, too, for most of my 50 years identified as a moderate leftist on most issues; I thought that was the team that stood for open-mindedness and a "live and let live" philosophy, which sounded good. But both the Trump presidency and the Covid19 experience has thrown into stark relief what everyone's true priorities and allegiances are. My eyes have been opened, and it seems clear to me as a long-time subscriber that yours have been too. Turns out, our former "friends" care not at all for Truth when it is truly Inconvenient. And yes, these smug comfortable "expert" types really do believe that what they want to be true is, simply because they and all their credentialed (by the Military-Industrial-Big Data Surveillance controlled establishment) say it should be so. We can hope enough of us have unplugged from the Matrix to band together and resist this crap. But I fear they may have successfully divided us along too many lines already... (Hint, folks: stop blaming the national Democratic OR Republican parties -- they're 2 sides of the same rotten corrupt machine.)
Bakelite72: Correct diagnosis, but I disagree that they are capable of dividing us. Virtually everyone I know, and most of the random strangers I meet see through the bullshit. All they have is a weaponized DOJ, IRS, HHS, and so forth, and a vast store of lethal weapons. The only possible way they can destroy us is the same way Hitler established dictatorial powers in a mere eighteen months after becoming chancellor, then president, by sheer terror. They (the National Socialists) were paranoid gangsters, like our political class is becoming. But they won't succeed because we know liberty, and, unlike any other nation in history, the citizenry is well armed.
I like your optimism, Gary -- let's all hope you are correct!
"Virtually everyone I know, and most of the random strangers I meet see through the bullshit."
But what does anyone do about it? No matter who is elected (or more often, re-elected) the policies don't change.
Yeah, the left of “Do Your Own Thing” and “Make Your Own Kind of Music” is dead as dead can be. It had its flaws, but damn I miss it.
We're still around, but we're being attacked by elites calling us MAGA hillbillies for wanting 'freedumb'.
2 + 2 = 5, doncha know?
Exactly. They used to call it brainwashed. All the avid brain washed chair sitters would probably kill themselves if their delusions fell away suddenly. When they suddenly overwhelmed by the depths of depravity they willingly defended and participated in.
"Bump repeatedly tells Noam his problem is that he’s not accepting his, Bump’s, versions of things."
See, if you'd just accept the idea that space aliens or maybe a talking cat deposited the money in Joe Biden's bank account - just because - then there would be no crime. And the WaPo and the NYT assure us - assure us - that this is all totally plausible and in fact, happens every day in comic books.
But at the same time, the same MSM assures us that the Russiagate conspiracy theory is a 169% pure 24K gold article of faith, in spite of being a crackpot conspiracy theory when viewed in light of all available evidence, not to mention basic common sense.
And yet the handwringers are convinced that the game show host should be in jail for trying to steal the election that they stole fair and square with Russiagate and laptop lies. It’s painful to watch.
“Until you show me proof Joe Biden DIDN’T own a talking cat, you can’t tell me he received money illegally. You’re being ridiculous.”
-Philip Bump-
Bump actually KNOWS that Biden has a talking cat, because he's in possession of the very receipt Erwin Schrödinger gave Biden when he sold him the cat. It was a pretty good deal too; not only could the cat talk, it could deliver speeches by (or for) Neil Kinnock.
I think in fact that the cat got control of Joe Biden and wired him for sound. I chided the cat for this misbehavior and he pointed out he wasn't there. Later, in the email, I received a nice copy of the Cheshire Cat's famous smile which isn't there either. "see?" added Schrödinger's cat. Of course not.
Appendix: The Revenge of Schroedinger's Cat
http://starrygordon.com/schroedinger.html
And let’s not forget the cat’s ability to do bank transactions. One amazing feline!
You have a bright future ahead of you....
Unfortunately I’m well past my bright future.
Very strange things happen to people's brains (and very strange things fall from their mouths) once they tie themselves to the mast of certain beliefs but cannot publicly honestly admit their reasons or motivations.
All of us here know the inside of Bump's brain better than he does: his cohort has decided that all things are allowed in the hunt for their Orange/White Whale, that they are sick of listening to the grubby plebs who didn't go to the right schools and don't work for prestige corporations inside the gates of the Imperial City, and they want us to shut up and do, say and vote as we're told by our obvious betters.
But as they can't just come out and say this they have to resort to various lies and tantrums: "I already told you all you need to know about Hunter and his laptop (and every other issue), why can't you just shut up and obey?!"
Democracy™ dies when a WaPo reporter is asked to publicly explain himself.
If someone had told me in 2016 I’d be considering voting for trump in 2024 because he is the lesser of evils I would have laughed in their face. But here I am. Trump’s enemies are making him look like Robin Hood.
For quite some time now I have viewed WaPo as state sponsored propaganda garbage. Nothing less.
They want to be Ministry of Truth/Thought Police and so should be treated as such: manipulative liars who wield words and phrases like weapons to maintain their power and injure their enemies. The MSM delenda est.
NYT also! Did anyone see the Bidenomics explanation (for 5th graders) the other day? Pure Pravda! https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjDmPPZ7JmBAxUtlIkEHXR6CbsQFnoECBQQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2023%2F09%2F06%2Fbriefing%2Fus-economy-biden-democrats.html&usg=AOvVaw37qONBrzxU4msrPXLOOeJC&opi=89978449
I'm open to being shown I'm wrong, but I think this stuff is the best part about the Biden administration. Not all of it can or should be directly attributed to him, but it is happening under his watch. What parts of that article do you have a problem with, outside of its deferential tone?
in dimwitted darkness...........trademark or not ;)
I think that’s a mission statement instead of a warning.
But where did this fervor come from? This just didn't happen overnight. Who was the architect? All of this media concern over the "threat to democracy." Donald Trump --- really?
Somehow the switch was flipped to "anger" above "change." Like the Taliban blowing up the Buddha statues, the US of A needs to be, just not re-imagined, but taken apart. And the people doing it are Bump and his friends. Talk about "privilege." So righteous.
I don’t think there’s an architect, but I do think one person in particular probably started it all by convincing the corporate press that Trump was the Manchurian Candidate and Russia stole the 2016 election: Hillary.
P.S. Before anyone assumes I’m a Republican, I’m a gay lefty who supports a 4-day work week, abolishing the intelligence agencies, going epic in fighting climate change and raising corporate + rich people’s taxes. :) (Also, read “Shattered” because it’s all there -- and Hillary approved two mainstream reporters who wrote it, or they wouldn’t have had the access to her and her campaign that they had.
I’ve read through “Shattered” twice, and lived through it once, and it is a very well written book that really captures how out of touch Hillary was. She valued loyalty over competence and that burned her.
Huma was quadruple dipping at one point, getting paychecks from the state department, directly from Hillary as her PA, from the CGI for her important work there, and from State again as an independent consultant......
Thomas Dodson: While Hillary bears a great share of the blame, it is the "intelligence" community who calls the shots. The Clintons have been CIA assets since their Arkansas days.
"But where did this fervor come from?"
Many books have been and will continue to be written about this.
I will take a crack: we already had a society fractured by decades of financialization, globalization, secularization, mass immigration and a possibly unprecedented level of technological churn, with the basic end result being a society of addled and deracinated consumers instead of citizens.
This main fissure has been described as Progressive/Conservative Somewhere/Anywhere globalists/nationalists (these have opened up throughout the West). But throw in social media, which seems designed to make people hate each other, add the college-educated becoming disciples of the new secular religion Social Justice, and thus the 2 sides no longer see anything in common w the other or any reason to tolerate the other.
Trump is both a symptom and a match thrown into a dry field.
Clever Pseudonym: Good. Add to these factors the softening of will and curiosity from the entitlement state, and mass schooling.
"the softening of will and curiosity from the entitlement state..."
affluenza can be fatal!
Elite overproduction, according to Turchin. See his book “End Times”. When stagnating wages mean the plebes get a smaller and smaller fraction of the growing GDP, you get more aspiring elites than there are positions of authority to fill, so they go after each other in a desperate frenzy.
My idea (so far) is that the PMC (caste) is in charge of Truth (as in "follow the science") and must not be contradicted. A certain religious organization I shall omit naming put it this way: "Error does not have the same rights as Truth."
Clever, this is simply the religious mindset in all its glory. It's just being applied to what should be secular issues.
It goes back to 1800 and Adams defeat by Jefferson. Jefferson believed in evolution and a new constitution for every generation. The AMERICAN Style historians say Adams finally conceded but in 2023 it is still hearsay.
"...once they tie themselves to the mast of certain beliefs but cannot publicly honestly admit their reasons or motivations."
The [brain-] Death Ship has a new captain.
Cheers to all my Nosferatu fans out there, only 53 days til Halloween!
“[Trump’s] become an anti-God, of a faith that requires constant worship. When do we get to go back to being atheists?”
Brilliant.
This. I was listening to Maher on Rogan's podcast and he seemed to imply that it's an inherent truth that Trump is a "crazy, stupid, criminal" - and he repeated several mainstream media talking points after having JUST derided the mainstream media on several other points. For some reason there's this religious level of belief in how bad Trump is that seems weird and cult-ish.
I saw that too and was struck at how manic Maher was when he spouted his scripture on Trump. Almost like he couldn't break out of his cognitive dissonance but somewhere in his brain, he knows it's crazy.
TDS is a thing
It's where Maher's brain breaks. He has TDS up his a--.
I thought Rogan would make a better argument for the hypocrisy of tds victims and democracy/fascism caterwauling. Superdelegates, Bernie getting robbed twice, Russia gate, laptop lies, etc
It’s worth noting that such zealotry was in full effect long before Jan. 6.
There was similar fervor regarding George W. Bush during his presidency but it’s clear to me that social media allowed the anti-Trump hysteria to escalate to End Times levels.
Yes, even though it galls me now that my parents supported George W. Bush because he was “pro life” (what a farce!), and even though I was only an adolescent during his presidency, I do recall the constant vilification and hatred in the media toward him.
But now they trot him out with the Obamas as if it never happened. I doubt Trump will ever be sitting next to the Clintons at the funeral of another dead warmonger, though.
I heard Bill Maher say MSNBC was far left. I resolved to never again listen to anything this man had to say.
TDS is a thing
i don't consider those that wallow in it, victims. they actively embrace it, as it gives them a sense of superiority over the lesser mortals. its a virtue signaling badge of honor!
Maher is dope-deluded dunce incapable of critical thought. His "opinions" paper over the fact that that he's multi-millionaire trapped in the world of the rich.
This interview with Bump just highlights that he either has no idea what is really going on or is plainly being deceitful. Neither option is acceptable for a guy in his role. It just shows that none of these propagandists can even defend the stances they take as they are not based in objective truth, nor are the issues even well understood by the narrative propagators.
I'd go with the second option. He is being plainly deceitful, because defending Team Blue (his tribe) is more important than seriously examining evidence if it puts his tribe in a bad light.
Maybe he is just delusional and cannot see it. THere are so many who are. Trump fans are routinely told that is their problem which of course is the usual projection.
I think there are plenty of people on the left and the right who consider tribal membership more important than examining evidence based rational arguments. Sometimes there is no one to root for.
Right?! So discouraging.
Members of the Inner Party are the most fervent believers of their own propaganda: Truth is what the Party says it is.
Skip. Let us all stop using the “tribe” trope. Overused to the extreme. And disrespectful to ( as usual) to the Indians in this country. Or ( old term) Native Americans that truly do have tribes.
The term _tribe_ goes back to the ancient world, where it denoted part of the political organization of early Rome. It does not refer particularly to American Indians, who should probably be referred to as nations, as they do in Canada. The Indians also used some equivalent term, hence "The Five Nations", an American Indian confederation.
I have no intention to offend Native Americans. I use the word in a broader sense. I am 67 years old, and I grew up with a thicker skin than the "woke" generation.
Besides, tribes are not unique to indigenous Americans. The twelve tribes of Israel and the ancient Roman Tribal Assembly come to mind.
Am older than you Skip. Definitely NOT “ woke”.
They’re called the Guardians now, anyway.
Bump is what you call a useful idiot.
I've often wondered how high up this goes. It may be useful idiots all the way.
How about a third option ---- he writes stuff for one of the Great Newspapers so he is A Celebrity! He is so cool and has to share his coolness with the rest of us, so --- do the podcast, any podcast! Celebrity journalism. Probably will be in The Front Row at the next White House correspondents' dinner, wearing a mask, of course.
I think you nailed the core problem about the "blue bubble" view of Trump as an "anti-God" -- in fact, one could make a serious argument that the decline of media was stoked ever since Trump's ascent to the White House in 2017. They lost their collective minds and all their bad decisions, their sins of omissions, their propagandist missives about Biden and Democrats -- all of these are driven by the singular goal of banning Trump from the public square (and the White House).
The media feels that they are in a war (against Trump) and nothing less than our country is at stake. And as Sen. Hiram Johnson said over 100 years ago, "The first casualty of war is truth" and the media's goal is no longer truth but defeating their enemies.
Unfortunately, the MSM have been very successful in their war against truth. I do not have a single friend on the left with whom I can discuss politics. For the most part, they are college-educated professionals--ignorant of what is going on, devoid of curiosity, obedient to all establishment dictates, and filled with media-fueled loathing of Republicans.
Sad for you.
I live in France and we have healthy social times at coffee in the market on Sundays.
Most of my friends are very left leaning but not all. We support each other.
I don't believe France has anything like the politico-religious zealotry currently all the rage in the US. French people are far more realistic about the nature of their government. And the French propaganda machine is a pale comparison to the US Ministry of Truth. US citizens are continuously told that the only thing that matters is race and gender. France has yet to hit Peak Orwell.
Having lived in France myself, I agree completely.
Americans were taught (until recently) that discussing politics is taboo, while French people just find the subject to be a rousing bit of dinner time conversation.
Although I find the preponderance of globalist lefties there too high for my liking, it’s true that their propaganda machines have nothing on the American “intelligence” “community” and the Deep State.
Americans really are some of the most propagandized people on earth.
Maybe because we had so many religious wars and the French revolution.
Say hi to the Coneheads for me.
“... ignorant of what is going on, devoid of curiosity, obedient to all establishment dictates, and filled with media-fueled loathing of Republicans.”
-------
Yes, this. The Left in the US has found they can fool some of the people most of the time. Like clockwork now.
If they succeed in banning him from the public square, they’re gonna spend the next 30-40 years reminding us how they defeated the great evil and it doesn’t matter that they empowered a bunch of unelected technocratic authoritarians to run the administration of a deeply corrupt sock-puppet president.
I wouldn't say that it started with Trump, but once Trump was elected then the MSM stopped even pretending to put on a face of objectivity. Any slander, however insane, any insinuation, no matter how far-fetched, became fair game. Because Trump.
Precisely. They called Trump all the same things they called every Republican since Eisenhower.
Things went warp-speed upon Trump's victory, but leftist media has always had a holier-than-thou, foot-stamping streak that demands deference to The Narrative, truth be damned.
Good book by a former (1980s) Guardian writer Melanie Phillips on her journey out of it.
https://www.amazon.com/Guardian-Angel-Journey-Leftism-Sanity/dp/1682615685
The near complete lack of interest in the IRS Whistleblowers' testimony is unique in American history.
2 highly regarded IRS agents revealed bank records showing $17 million dollars paid to 9 different Biden family members, including kids, siblings, teen grandkids and a guidance counselor in law, by multiple foreign corporations. The payments were churned thru 20 shell corps and generated 170 suspicious activity reports (SAR). The vast majority of Americans will never have one SAR in their lifetime. Have more than a couple and many banks will refuse your business. The Biden clan had 170. Later another $3 million dollars in similar payments were found.
The payments were made without contracts or invoices. It remains unclear if appropriate taxes were paid. Some payments followed phone calls or suppers with Joe. All were made while Joe was VP. No Biden has claimed the bank records are erroneous or fraudulent. No explanation as to what the Biden teenagers and the Guidance Counselor in law, did to earn paydays from half way around the world. The only Dem defense has been, everything is kosher because there was no direct deposit into Joe's account.
If that is the new standard, working in DC is about to be a lot more lucrative. An Israeli Corp can send each of Ted Cruz's daughters a million bucks int their college accounts, days before Cruz lobbies for more Israeli aid, and everything is fine? Understand not being a Trump fan, but this wasn't a sweetheart deal on a beach house remodel. This could easily be the largest bribery scandal in the US Executive Branch ever, and not one journalist seems interested in investigating. Can you please explain that Matt?
This should be a top three comment on this story.
"......substituting checklists of unquestioned assumptions for thought."
Does that not hit the nail on the head with a resounding bang?
It reminds me of a passage in George MacDonald's novel, "Thomas Wingfold: Curate":
"When I say that she came near thinking, I say more for her than any but the few who know what thinking is will understand, for that which chiefly distinguishes man from those he calls the lower animals is the faculty he most rarely exercises. True, Helen supposed she could think—like other people, because the thoughts of other people had passed through her in tolerable plenty, leaving many a phantom conclusion behind; but this was THEIR thinking, not hers. She had thought no more than was necessary now and then to the persuasion that she saw what a sentence meant, after which, her acceptance or rejection of what was contained in it, never more than lukewarm, depended solely upon its relation to what she had somehow or other, she could seldom have told how, come to regard as the proper style of opinion to hold upon things in general."
It's absurd for Phillip Bump to say, "I already debunked that idea," when the real statement should be, "I already presented a counter-argument to that idea." As much as I hate using the term, "debunking" is a way of saying, "I've proven you wrong." A counter-argument is just that: A different explanation for the same set of facts. For Bump to say that just because he states an opinion that it's automatically factual is as dishonest as Dr Anthony Fauci stating, "I am science!" and implying that what he said was automatically true.
Just as anyone who assures you "I'm honest" is sketchy as hell, anyone who claims "I'm an expert" is most likely a font of BS and deliberately cultivated ignorance.
Add 'transparent' in there.
Words mean what they choose them to mean.
Sorry to debunk you but...
come on Kevin!!!
Your definition of debunking is both incorrect and so last decade.
Get with the times man! Or the Post...whichever.
The use of the word "bunk" to mean "bullshit" is part of the problem.
Any asshole who thinks that "bunk" meaning falsity is somehow elegant or classy is just that, an asshole.
You're funny. You really are.
[ U ] old-fashioned informal
(also bunkum, US /ˈbʌŋ.kəm/ UK /ˈbʌŋ.kəm/) complete nonsense or something that is not true: Most economists think his theories are sheer bunk.
If it makes you feel any better about coming up short once again, I am unquestionably an asshole. Even if I'm privy to the various meanings of bunk but don't think the word itself is "elegant or classy." Bank on that, baby. You funny.
I know that it is common parlance. It's also borne out of the same instinct that gave us gosh darn. Language matters. Euphemism sucks.
PS Nice cultural appropriation of "you funny." Asshole.
Luis Molina : "You atheists never stop talking about God!" - Kiss Of The Spider Woman
If Trump is on the ballot, I have a feeling these types of people could be in for a pretty rude awakening come Election Day.
And of course, once again, they will wonder how it could have happened and will conclude that it was all Cornel West's fault.
Whatever happens on election day, Trump will not be declared the winner. The fortification in 2024 will be even stronger than the last election.
Unless the repudiation of the Democratic Party by the voting nation is crystal clear in 2024 --- and how can that be when all election systems are being set up to only facilitate one result.
If Trump wins, I somehow doubt these people will top off a half decade of increasingly hysterical warnings and unprecedented actions by slinking off in defeat. I’m worried that, one of these days, their capacity for action might catch up to their capacity for excuses.
They won't let him back in. It's amazing how few people have remarked on the extraordinary fact that much of the national security state and the military brass coalesced in their opposition to Trump (off the top of my head: general Milley, Matthis, McChrystal). These generals were or became his fiercest critics. In the unlikely event that Trump overcame the election fortification, do you think these people would stand down? I fear the worst.
These WaPo hacks are not interested in journalism. They are the product of liberal colleges that have agenda that has nothing to do with truth.
And ... they work for people who aren’t as interested in informing the public as they are in supporting the ruling class they are a part of. I’m sure the top people at the Post have very cozy relationships with the powerful, and get plenty of whispers that then show up in the paper as storylines. If you don’t live inside the bubble, the paper reads like propaganda. The young in their idealism have bought the idea that manipulating the public is somehow more noble than informing them. They themselves are being manipulated and don’t yet know it.
Well, it's in the nature of a catechism.