I am a little bothered by your question Matt lumping Joe Rogan and Alex Jones together and your guest then describing them (this lumped-together coupling) as "marginal actors with strange ideas". I'm sorry, did I miss something? Is Joe Rogan a marginal character with strange ideas? I think he is a brilliant interviewer. I notice he is anti-interventionist. I notice he asks reasonable questions about social issues that others are increasingly afraid to ask. So this lumping of him together with Alex Jones as a marginal actor with strange ideas makes me wonder about Gurri. Does Gurri even know who Rogan is? Or did he assume that he was an Alex Jones-type person based on the question?
I clearly don't think of Joe as marginal or strange - I've been on his show twice and am a huge fan. I'm simply pointing out that anyone can go from low-profile to giant-profile virtually overnight in media today. Also, as I've said before many times, mainstream outlets despise Joe precisely because he ascended without their permission, he's not a "real" interviewer in their minds, and they feel this is improper, much like the people going after Substack feel this site is improper. So, that's why I asked that question, because it's my belief that a lot of what's driving the censorship movement is a desire to narrow the media landscape to eliminate self-made media voices, forcing everyone to be dependent upon established companies.
I really appreciate your reply, thanks for taking the time. I agree, what they have in common here is they didn't/don't have "permission". (I still wonder does Gurri know..:)
He probably doesn't know much at all about JR, I'd guess. Maybe he does, tho. To be fair, when I think of JR, "obsessed with DMT" is one of the first things that comes to mind. LOL
Media is being dis-aggregated as other commodities have been in the past; let us all remember to raise a beer for Jimmy Carter who's deregulation of brewing opened the door to the many choices that Bernie Sanders thinks we have too much of. Even subscription being the basis for media revenue isn't all that new as it was the dominant means prior to the media becoming primarily an advertising business.
Ok Beetle - if we can count on Bernie and his Bro's to support the craft brew industry - tell me why Vermont is the first thing that enters ones mind when it comes The Commissar of Taste and all things 'intersectional' and the freedom to make and drink beer?
Like he learned this on his Honeymoon in Moscow after Jane finally taught him what his 'special purpose' was for?
Don't you love how all these choices that politicians and gov'ts pushed since the 50s (in particular) are now SO bad and we should stop them. Its the shame culture-- like its our fault right?, like it was all those people taking sub-prime mortgages-- blame the person THEY encouraged to buy these things. Love the mind games 🙄 All I can say is thanks Dad !(and yes they are like dads in EVERY way0
I think the "strange idea" in Rogan's case may be giving people from all corners of the political spectrum roaming multi-hour interviews, quite unlike anything other interviewers or media outlets do. "Strange" does not automatically imply bad or criticism, it can just be a neutral description of the core idea that made Rogan big, from the perspective of the rest of the media. As for marginal actors - they are both individuals and have not attempted to grow a team around their 'brand', so this description also appears to be accurate.
Yes, and every once in a while he'll let someone he's interviewing provide some context. The main stream media hates context. Nothing but narrative for th masses. They get uppity when supplied w enough information to think
The answers you gave to your hypothetical question to Margaret Sullivan, whoever she is, accurately depict the cluelessness of much of today's media. Unfortunately you lump yourself in that category when you insert this into your last question "How much more or less bleak does the picture look now, after four years of Donald Trump? It looks possible that his legacy will be the delegitimization of electoral politics, ..."
Donald Trump, scoundrel he may be, was constantly attacked even before he took office. As your guest noted "When Trump won in 2016, the elites refused to accept his legitimacy." No other President has ever received the treatment he received yet he still made it through four years of constant fire; but you still try to affix a pile of blame on him. As for the "delegitimizing electoral politics", why not attribute that to the people who were quickly changing electoral laws and procedures up to the week of voting, that's where the delegitimizing took place amigo. As I have stated here before, I was quite skeptical of Trump but between the treatment he received and the few accomplishments he as able to achieve, I now think he did a pretty good job.
I enjoy much of what you write but I wouldn't throw folks like Margaret Sullivan under the bus because you might belong under the bus too.
Your statement "he finds some of that failure in the habit of setting expectations too high, deceiving the public into misunderstanding “the reality of what democratic governments can achieve.” reminds me of Obama's "new normal" comment.
They seem to be saying alternately: forget about what your founding fathers told you of the possibility of a just government, individual sovereignty, and the American dream - those are pipe dreams. We seem to be advised to accept that the powers that be know better than we about what's good for us and our country (populists!). And that the powers that be prefer to have their employees oversees where they are cheap and the regulation that defend our environment, scarce. So get used to unemployment rotting away the middle class and enduring freedom restricting regulations to control the pollution we aren't the ones creating. While getting plied with lots of pharmaceuticals, both legal and illegal. (Some do manage to keeps us docile)
Adjust your expectations, people.
The foundational premise that this article is missing is that the 6 media empires that control the worldwide narrative are selling false narratives to Americans and the rest of the world on purpose- for profit and control.
The billionaires believe themselves to be a ruling class, far above the hoi polloi, who aren't worthy of the truth, only of exploitations. And although this has gone on since the beginning of time, it has become a critically important reality that needs to be understood IN THIS MOMENT of time.
The New World Order is upon us. They are getting close to their Great Reset with their agenda 2021 which got pushed to 2030, (due partly to the Trump reprieve). It's not about making a better world for the people of the world, as their propaganda prolifically promulgated by their media empires claims, it's about money, a widely available population reduction agenda and control. (Vaccine passport, anyone?) (check out Open Society Foundation etc.- anything supported by Soros)
So far, but the Democrats and liberal cancel culture, and woke crowd is desperately attempting to squash those "endless alternatives." And in my opinion, they are going to be successful, at least in the short term and probably the long term.
I live in Canada and have the same MSM problem, so I read wonderful journalists like Matt, Glenn Greenwald, Max Blumenthal at the Gray Zone, Aaron Mate etc. I also have my financial and geo-political guys who I have tested and supported over the years.
Its like "wack a mole", as Gurri says they can't possibly squash them all. They just keep coming. That is the most obvious difference between digital and non-digital
Bannon at War Room has talked about this for many years before joining Trump to help him win in 2016 & then after leaving spending so much time assisting the Europeans on MAGA and populism - probably why he has been PERSONALLY declaired a 'non-person' by the Chinese Communist Party - which folks is code for off him at will -
Obama's really a late reference for the Managed Decline motif the UNIPARTY has clung to as an excuse to stick it to us since Poppy Bush. Obama took operating and leading a shadow government as a deliberate strategy to undermine and politically destroy a duly elected successor.
He belongs thrown in the Senate/House Well - hounded to exile - and stripped of all pension or any security or ex-post-facto presidental powers extened to ex-presidents.
Too boot - he can take some of that filthy lucre - the 100 + million that paid for that Martha' Vinyards estate - and buy his own security.
I agree with Trump being a symptom. Loss of faith in our “elites” and institutions. The reaction to Trump was MUCH scarier then Trump. Government sanctioned spying on an opposition candidate. Lying. More lying. Corrupt and rigged election. The elites managed to destroy many norms in “protecting” us from Trump.
Thanks, Matt. Excellent interview. I hope people in the msm will read this, but fear they're too preoccupied with trying to beat their viewers/readers into submission. And the more msm tries to get QAnon, Alex Jones, Fox, etc banned, the more msm just turns into stuffy versions of the conspiracy theorists they want us to think they're protecting us from.
Add the term "Blue-Anon" to the list above. Google and Urban Dictionary just shadow-banned it. I'm not sure who coined the term but the first time I heard it was from Glenn Greenwald.
It's the DNC and overall media/industrial complex. The joke is that Blue-Anon is supposed to encompass narratives that are widely agreed to be crackpot nonsense. The sad reality is that Blue-Anon encompasses narratives that are mainstream among brunch liberals and the most upwardly mobile people in society.
That is so apt. About time. This article nails it again Matt Taibbi; got to read more of this author - keen and timely insight. We are in media transformation and Substack is a big part of that - we can read this guy - find so much more of what he has talked about in such interviews as this - and find his writings in less than the time it once took me to get in the car and get to a College Library where I had access to serious info - back in the pre-internet days.
I can look up and access any performance - and YouTube doesn't have some total command control - if he was on C-Span I'll find it.
The infomation warfare that is threatening the existance of representitive democracy can and should be combated - and make no mistake - you have to outmanuver and out perfrom the political opposition to win - and thus steer us clear of these totalitarian shoals.
Agreed Polly-- already happening. Here in Canada govt is openly bankrolling media -- tells you their financial state. A interesting but statistically insignificant observation is that the 24/7 TV is on in any business has plummeted. I used to see it everywhere, waiting for a burger, in line for the TTC (subway), in most businesses I would visit.
I can think of hundreds of examples of how the public trust has been diminished over time from all ends of the political spectrum - Fauci initially saying that masks are not necessary, to weapons of mass of destruction, to Geithner foaming the runways for the Banks, to how our deep state intelligence apparatus spies upon daily, uses algorithms to track our data/behavior, and pushes false memes like Venezuela is dangerous, Syrian chemical weapons, or COINTELPRO stopped in the 70s.... Our President going on live television - saying I am not a crook or I did not have sex with that women, Miss Lewinsky.
Trust and betrayal are wedded in this culture where democracy is just a clown mask for corrupt oligopoly. We need more content on how trust works as a means of resistance. Thanks Matt.
I think this is the fundamental challenge of a decentralized media; how do you know who to trust? We seem to have reached a point where the answer to that question is "no one," but we cannot hope for any kind of consensus politics, if everyone has to pick his/her own truth. Who will be able to convincingly expose charismatic charlatans, if there is no dependable "authority?" And with deep fakes in the offing, we won't even be able to trust our own eyes. Scary times.
Unlike our public policy (and Obama's nudge theory) incrementalism, I think trust needs to be earned, monitored, reflected upon publicly, and ultimately offered incrementally. Too many of us live the world of dopamine, addiction, and the personal payoff to become a part of someone else's revenue stream (caffeine, entertainment, pornography, substances and using the internet etc..)
We have to develop the muscle of stopping something that is unhealthy for us, and practice that feeling of the withdrawl, loneliness, or outright pain process. We are tough enough to handle this, but it involves finding a few places you can trust --- which in this culture means finding some piece meal solutions (Taibbi, Greenwald, Blumenthal, Cornel West, Mate, Gozstola, Hedges, and those people who have already paid a high price to do what they do best). But while trust with them may be deeper, we have to remember that it is still incremental --- and no one gets to do our thinking for us -- instead we shape each others thinking is the best result we have work towards.
So journalistic truth is like the fountain of youth for me --- something that does not exist but is practiced more as a criticism to existing power centers. That's how you know whom to trust --- is the reaction of the bastards to their work; at least for now.
This is all good (and how I come to be posting on this site) but there are many times that I wake up to the fact that I've placed trust in someone that did not deserve it. Also, it is a fantasy to think that the vast majority of stakeholders in our democracy will take the time and/or not come up with some dubious voices.
A fine point in lieu of trust (and the public). The last sentence is a killer.
Finding a way to break through (McLuhan) is central. One person who did that this week, I believe releasing on Youtube for free a series of lectures at Dartmouth (possibly could have been there for awhile, but just got algo-the'd - Dr. Cornel West
This series is mesmerizing for its substance, scholarship, and weaving in historical, contextual and pluralized meanings for W.E.B Dubois' work - The Soul of Black People.
It really is the best thing I have seen in a decade - and what our education should have been but is sadly not --- Cheers E Pierce.
Just love it... Paideia and Parrhesia; Jewish tradition of the least among us in self reflection and then German influence on Dubois -- all leading him to interplay between systems of mass distraction - leading to indifference. Just absolutely adore this man -- and I must admit a huge urge to go back and re-read many of the classics after this course.
He's heading back to NYC - Union Theological Seminary after Harvard denied him tenure. It is really something to behold that a man of this quality who has had tenure at 3 different Ivy institutions could not receive the credit he is due -- because of politics. Institutional rot.
Thank you @e.pierce, and @mcelroyj (I guess substack doesn't allow for @s) for this thread - it is exactly what I need to further think the problem; though it also feeds my anxiety, inasmuch as I, who am retired, don't have time to consider all the angles - so where does that leave the rest of the world?
Adam Curtis examines the failure of liberal government systems, positing that they eschewed leadership for systems management. But capital is now managing the systems, corporate and finance structures have eclipsed the role of government. Where government is required, the outcome is dictated by capital. Hence the politicians have become mostly meaningless. No longer concerned with leading, and their management role greatly reduced, they have become empty media figures. From Trump to AOC, cheerleaders for cultural demographics. Bought this guys book. Cool interview.
Gurri is really great, and like you Matt, he seems to have his finger on this moment like few others. I’d love to hear a weekly series (maybe a limited podcast) of the two of you discussing these issues at length, with an occasional guest.
I’d hope an Idiots guest shot would be forthcoming, but I’m more interested in a deep dive into our weird zeitgeist via two people who seem to have unique understanding of two different, but equally important, aspects of it.
Matt and Glenn and some others are resisting the slide into the current unethical conformity - but - we are in new territory - more like pamphleteering during the very polarized post revolutionary period that preceded the war of 1812 and gave us the Sedition Act.
It is going to be a long tough slog because these god-awful universities are churning out these non-thinking thus unquestioning lemmings who are becoming farther and father removed from the principled fact based journalism Glenn & Matt are dedicated to.
And we have to remember - these youngsters are easily pimped - they get out loaded with debt and fewer and fewer opportunities - and no small venues beyond the internet to eat on.
We have to support that the way we do Matt and Glenn; MONEY not TALK. Not posting.
We are back almost to where the Russian surfs were fifty years before the revolution - and we can't expect these young people to starve for their principles....
My favourite line in the Interview "But all the techniques of control wielded by the elites are, like their dreams, stuck in the 20th century and ineffective in the current information landscape".
A perfect statement that can be applied to any area of our lives today-- medicine (COVID), education, politics (older and more patrician leaders), corporations/economics, finance, religion,-- its daunting but beautiful to be in the midst of this paradigm shift.
We need to take responsibility and reflect upon what we want and work with the existing roots (as Gurri states) of the hierarchal base. Change the base so it includes us instead of eliminating us. This is not what the WEF, big tech, governments/ billionaire, WHO decision makers want. They see us as the problem-- we get in the way of their "efficiencies (sic)" and control.
My strategy for the short term pain is to support my community, use my skills to help build alternative ways/structures for doing things and mostly ignore the trolls, live my life-there is always a way to get what you really want, it just takes work. My new definition of a troll is the elites and their minions whether govt, media or popular cultural figures. They are all shilling for the past arcane structures. Their privilege, money, power and influence all depend upon it. They are definitely not shilling for us-- don't feed the trolls.
I think I disagree with Gurri's assessment of the internet; the tech giants have a more comprehensive stranglehold than he admits. Seems like he's buying into the initial idealism of the web. But haven't read his book yet.
There's always the option of a peer-to-peer mesh network should the existing internet become so hamstrung that it's useless. And there's no doubt other options...
If Matt, David Sirota, the Naked Capitalism crowd, Scheerpost, Consortium News and a dozen others like them put together a large-scale news site, I would subscribe to it even if it was only available through flashdrive dead drops.
But how many people will switch to that? I worry that if the tech giants can maintain the illusion of freedom on the internet, they can stem this tide of anti-establishment thought.
It's obvious to a lot of people (and most if not all readers of Taibbi), but we are still a tiny minority without much impact on discourse. I would be happy to learn I'm not in a bubble, but I think I am.
Seems to me the Trump supporters are all anti-establishment and distrust the media-- it's the distrust of the media that a lot of people have in common and is the point, not whether or not your specifically left or right wing. There were enough of them to get Trump elected and nearly re-elected-- if Trump hadn't been such a total idiot he probably would have been re-elected. That seems to me to be more than a bubble. That I don't agree with the vast majority of the beliefs of those sorts of anti-establishment individuals, doesn't mean I don't have in common the belief that the corporate media and the electronic social media is completely under the thumb of the establishment (witness what happened to Parler) if they aren't considered the establishment themselves.
Agree with almost all of this, but I would say that it's important to differentiate between Trump supporters and Trump voters (who have many reasons to vote that way). Also, Trump supporters, in my opinion, more recognize the elite control of the old media institutions, but have a decent faith that they're safe on facebook, twitter, etc. (parler notwithstanding, and parler was still a minority from what I can tell). And if they do recognize the way the tech companies are closing the walls more and more, I don't think the average person (or Trump supporter) knows where to go. Unless you are really politically active and have a bunch of free time, I think you're very likely to accept your new, subtly curated facebook feed once the dissenting pages and voices disappear.
“The American people may be undergoing a psychotic episode, but they are fundamentally sensible.” This is, indeed, optimistic. Makes me smile in the moment. I don’t know whether it’s true.
The quote reminds me of a moment when I was working in a short-term mental-health facility. A man who was quite psychotic when he entered the facility was just beginning to respond to antipsychotic medicine, and it wasn’t a smooth transition. After some delusional discourse he talked lucidly with me for a few minutes, then shook his head and changed his expression, saying,”What the hell was that all about?” and lapsed right back into his delusional system, which was still intact and more compelling.
I zeroed in on that nugget too. I love this country, but let's face it, America has been going through not just periodic psychotic episodes but more or less sustained craziness for 400 years. This is why The Crazy One, in his multifarious manifestations, is revered as a national saint when he deigns to appear and grace us.
Yes! Before the elites could make tidy little, QUIET agreements with the 4th Estate:
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years… (censorship)…It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years.
But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.
Now being " subjected to the lights of publicity" is out of their hands. Perhaps "Autodetermination" will return to the masses or we will lose it forever to the omnipotent elites.
It seems like the advent of big media, in the form of newspapers, had a similar situation, called Yellow Journalism. News was secondary to political influence. I would agree that what we are witnessing is the end of big time media as we understood it. They were in their death-throes trying to do whatever they can think of to maintain relevance. They will not be successful and will leave the stage pretty much the same way they entered it.
I am a little bothered by your question Matt lumping Joe Rogan and Alex Jones together and your guest then describing them (this lumped-together coupling) as "marginal actors with strange ideas". I'm sorry, did I miss something? Is Joe Rogan a marginal character with strange ideas? I think he is a brilliant interviewer. I notice he is anti-interventionist. I notice he asks reasonable questions about social issues that others are increasingly afraid to ask. So this lumping of him together with Alex Jones as a marginal actor with strange ideas makes me wonder about Gurri. Does Gurri even know who Rogan is? Or did he assume that he was an Alex Jones-type person based on the question?
I clearly don't think of Joe as marginal or strange - I've been on his show twice and am a huge fan. I'm simply pointing out that anyone can go from low-profile to giant-profile virtually overnight in media today. Also, as I've said before many times, mainstream outlets despise Joe precisely because he ascended without their permission, he's not a "real" interviewer in their minds, and they feel this is improper, much like the people going after Substack feel this site is improper. So, that's why I asked that question, because it's my belief that a lot of what's driving the censorship movement is a desire to narrow the media landscape to eliminate self-made media voices, forcing everyone to be dependent upon established companies.
I really appreciate your reply, thanks for taking the time. I agree, what they have in common here is they didn't/don't have "permission". (I still wonder does Gurri know..:)
He probably doesn't know much at all about JR, I'd guess. Maybe he does, tho. To be fair, when I think of JR, "obsessed with DMT" is one of the first things that comes to mind. LOL
You know how I know you've never taken DMT 😉
Media is being dis-aggregated as other commodities have been in the past; let us all remember to raise a beer for Jimmy Carter who's deregulation of brewing opened the door to the many choices that Bernie Sanders thinks we have too much of. Even subscription being the basis for media revenue isn't all that new as it was the dominant means prior to the media becoming primarily an advertising business.
...when did Bernie Sanders try to get rid of craft breweries?
It was his idiotic comment about deodorant brands that was my inspiration.
Ok Beetle - if we can count on Bernie and his Bro's to support the craft brew industry - tell me why Vermont is the first thing that enters ones mind when it comes The Commissar of Taste and all things 'intersectional' and the freedom to make and drink beer?
Like he learned this on his Honeymoon in Moscow after Jane finally taught him what his 'special purpose' was for?
Don't you love how all these choices that politicians and gov'ts pushed since the 50s (in particular) are now SO bad and we should stop them. Its the shame culture-- like its our fault right?, like it was all those people taking sub-prime mortgages-- blame the person THEY encouraged to buy these things. Love the mind games 🙄 All I can say is thanks Dad !(and yes they are like dads in EVERY way0
I think the "strange idea" in Rogan's case may be giving people from all corners of the political spectrum roaming multi-hour interviews, quite unlike anything other interviewers or media outlets do. "Strange" does not automatically imply bad or criticism, it can just be a neutral description of the core idea that made Rogan big, from the perspective of the rest of the media. As for marginal actors - they are both individuals and have not attempted to grow a team around their 'brand', so this description also appears to be accurate.
Yes, and every once in a while he'll let someone he's interviewing provide some context. The main stream media hates context. Nothing but narrative for th masses. They get uppity when supplied w enough information to think
I agree his recent interview with Aiyaan Hirsi Ali was amazing
The answers you gave to your hypothetical question to Margaret Sullivan, whoever she is, accurately depict the cluelessness of much of today's media. Unfortunately you lump yourself in that category when you insert this into your last question "How much more or less bleak does the picture look now, after four years of Donald Trump? It looks possible that his legacy will be the delegitimization of electoral politics, ..."
Donald Trump, scoundrel he may be, was constantly attacked even before he took office. As your guest noted "When Trump won in 2016, the elites refused to accept his legitimacy." No other President has ever received the treatment he received yet he still made it through four years of constant fire; but you still try to affix a pile of blame on him. As for the "delegitimizing electoral politics", why not attribute that to the people who were quickly changing electoral laws and procedures up to the week of voting, that's where the delegitimizing took place amigo. As I have stated here before, I was quite skeptical of Trump but between the treatment he received and the few accomplishments he as able to achieve, I now think he did a pretty good job.
I enjoy much of what you write but I wouldn't throw folks like Margaret Sullivan under the bus because you might belong under the bus too.
Interesting to me how often certain writers feel compelled to take a swipe at Trump just to prove their bonafides.
Residue of his being a journalist. The other Gurri article has a salient bit about Matt in Iowa in '16.
Your statement "he finds some of that failure in the habit of setting expectations too high, deceiving the public into misunderstanding “the reality of what democratic governments can achieve.” reminds me of Obama's "new normal" comment.
They seem to be saying alternately: forget about what your founding fathers told you of the possibility of a just government, individual sovereignty, and the American dream - those are pipe dreams. We seem to be advised to accept that the powers that be know better than we about what's good for us and our country (populists!). And that the powers that be prefer to have their employees oversees where they are cheap and the regulation that defend our environment, scarce. So get used to unemployment rotting away the middle class and enduring freedom restricting regulations to control the pollution we aren't the ones creating. While getting plied with lots of pharmaceuticals, both legal and illegal. (Some do manage to keeps us docile)
Adjust your expectations, people.
The foundational premise that this article is missing is that the 6 media empires that control the worldwide narrative are selling false narratives to Americans and the rest of the world on purpose- for profit and control.
The billionaires believe themselves to be a ruling class, far above the hoi polloi, who aren't worthy of the truth, only of exploitations. And although this has gone on since the beginning of time, it has become a critically important reality that needs to be understood IN THIS MOMENT of time.
The New World Order is upon us. They are getting close to their Great Reset with their agenda 2021 which got pushed to 2030, (due partly to the Trump reprieve). It's not about making a better world for the people of the world, as their propaganda prolifically promulgated by their media empires claims, it's about money, a widely available population reduction agenda and control. (Vaccine passport, anyone?) (check out Open Society Foundation etc.- anything supported by Soros)
Sounds like dystopian fiction doesn't it? Do your own research, but don't use Google, it's CIA (per Julian Assange. https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/)
The 6 media empires only control the narrative if you read and watch them. I don't have to, there is endless alternatives to read online.
" there is endless alternatives to read online."
So far, but the Democrats and liberal cancel culture, and woke crowd is desperately attempting to squash those "endless alternatives." And in my opinion, they are going to be successful, at least in the short term and probably the long term.
I live in Canada and have the same MSM problem, so I read wonderful journalists like Matt, Glenn Greenwald, Max Blumenthal at the Gray Zone, Aaron Mate etc. I also have my financial and geo-political guys who I have tested and supported over the years.
Its like "wack a mole", as Gurri says they can't possibly squash them all. They just keep coming. That is the most obvious difference between digital and non-digital
Bannon at War Room has talked about this for many years before joining Trump to help him win in 2016 & then after leaving spending so much time assisting the Europeans on MAGA and populism - probably why he has been PERSONALLY declaired a 'non-person' by the Chinese Communist Party - which folks is code for off him at will -
Obama's really a late reference for the Managed Decline motif the UNIPARTY has clung to as an excuse to stick it to us since Poppy Bush. Obama took operating and leading a shadow government as a deliberate strategy to undermine and politically destroy a duly elected successor.
He belongs thrown in the Senate/House Well - hounded to exile - and stripped of all pension or any security or ex-post-facto presidental powers extened to ex-presidents.
Too boot - he can take some of that filthy lucre - the 100 + million that paid for that Martha' Vinyards estate - and buy his own security.
I agree with Trump being a symptom. Loss of faith in our “elites” and institutions. The reaction to Trump was MUCH scarier then Trump. Government sanctioned spying on an opposition candidate. Lying. More lying. Corrupt and rigged election. The elites managed to destroy many norms in “protecting” us from Trump.
Thanks, Matt. Excellent interview. I hope people in the msm will read this, but fear they're too preoccupied with trying to beat their viewers/readers into submission. And the more msm tries to get QAnon, Alex Jones, Fox, etc banned, the more msm just turns into stuffy versions of the conspiracy theorists they want us to think they're protecting us from.
Add the term "Blue-Anon" to the list above. Google and Urban Dictionary just shadow-banned it. I'm not sure who coined the term but the first time I heard it was from Glenn Greenwald.
Blue-Anon, as in DNC disinformation?
It's the DNC and overall media/industrial complex. The joke is that Blue-Anon is supposed to encompass narratives that are widely agreed to be crackpot nonsense. The sad reality is that Blue-Anon encompasses narratives that are mainstream among brunch liberals and the most upwardly mobile people in society.
That is so apt. About time. This article nails it again Matt Taibbi; got to read more of this author - keen and timely insight. We are in media transformation and Substack is a big part of that - we can read this guy - find so much more of what he has talked about in such interviews as this - and find his writings in less than the time it once took me to get in the car and get to a College Library where I had access to serious info - back in the pre-internet days.
I can look up and access any performance - and YouTube doesn't have some total command control - if he was on C-Span I'll find it.
The infomation warfare that is threatening the existance of representitive democracy can and should be combated - and make no mistake - you have to outmanuver and out perfrom the political opposition to win - and thus steer us clear of these totalitarian shoals.
Blue Anon
Agreed Polly-- already happening. Here in Canada govt is openly bankrolling media -- tells you their financial state. A interesting but statistically insignificant observation is that the 24/7 TV is on in any business has plummeted. I used to see it everywhere, waiting for a burger, in line for the TTC (subway), in most businesses I would visit.
And this is why I gladly pay for this subscription!!!!
same!
We need so much more writing about Trust.
I can think of hundreds of examples of how the public trust has been diminished over time from all ends of the political spectrum - Fauci initially saying that masks are not necessary, to weapons of mass of destruction, to Geithner foaming the runways for the Banks, to how our deep state intelligence apparatus spies upon daily, uses algorithms to track our data/behavior, and pushes false memes like Venezuela is dangerous, Syrian chemical weapons, or COINTELPRO stopped in the 70s.... Our President going on live television - saying I am not a crook or I did not have sex with that women, Miss Lewinsky.
Trust and betrayal are wedded in this culture where democracy is just a clown mask for corrupt oligopoly. We need more content on how trust works as a means of resistance. Thanks Matt.
I think this is the fundamental challenge of a decentralized media; how do you know who to trust? We seem to have reached a point where the answer to that question is "no one," but we cannot hope for any kind of consensus politics, if everyone has to pick his/her own truth. Who will be able to convincingly expose charismatic charlatans, if there is no dependable "authority?" And with deep fakes in the offing, we won't even be able to trust our own eyes. Scary times.
Unlike our public policy (and Obama's nudge theory) incrementalism, I think trust needs to be earned, monitored, reflected upon publicly, and ultimately offered incrementally. Too many of us live the world of dopamine, addiction, and the personal payoff to become a part of someone else's revenue stream (caffeine, entertainment, pornography, substances and using the internet etc..)
We have to develop the muscle of stopping something that is unhealthy for us, and practice that feeling of the withdrawl, loneliness, or outright pain process. We are tough enough to handle this, but it involves finding a few places you can trust --- which in this culture means finding some piece meal solutions (Taibbi, Greenwald, Blumenthal, Cornel West, Mate, Gozstola, Hedges, and those people who have already paid a high price to do what they do best). But while trust with them may be deeper, we have to remember that it is still incremental --- and no one gets to do our thinking for us -- instead we shape each others thinking is the best result we have work towards.
So journalistic truth is like the fountain of youth for me --- something that does not exist but is practiced more as a criticism to existing power centers. That's how you know whom to trust --- is the reaction of the bastards to their work; at least for now.
This is all good (and how I come to be posting on this site) but there are many times that I wake up to the fact that I've placed trust in someone that did not deserve it. Also, it is a fantasy to think that the vast majority of stakeholders in our democracy will take the time and/or not come up with some dubious voices.
A fine point in lieu of trust (and the public). The last sentence is a killer.
Finding a way to break through (McLuhan) is central. One person who did that this week, I believe releasing on Youtube for free a series of lectures at Dartmouth (possibly could have been there for awhile, but just got algo-the'd - Dr. Cornel West
This series is mesmerizing for its substance, scholarship, and weaving in historical, contextual and pluralized meanings for W.E.B Dubois' work - The Soul of Black People.
It really is the best thing I have seen in a decade - and what our education should have been but is sadly not --- Cheers E Pierce.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcDySbv9OyM&list=PLPDZ9rcIfxyN_w3EDiS56jrMPiVscUeqz&index=10
Just love it... Paideia and Parrhesia; Jewish tradition of the least among us in self reflection and then German influence on Dubois -- all leading him to interplay between systems of mass distraction - leading to indifference. Just absolutely adore this man -- and I must admit a huge urge to go back and re-read many of the classics after this course.
He's heading back to NYC - Union Theological Seminary after Harvard denied him tenure. It is really something to behold that a man of this quality who has had tenure at 3 different Ivy institutions could not receive the credit he is due -- because of politics. Institutional rot.
Have you read Taibbi's new piece out - Sovietization of America yet? Pretty interesting.
Thank you @e.pierce, and @mcelroyj (I guess substack doesn't allow for @s) for this thread - it is exactly what I need to further think the problem; though it also feeds my anxiety, inasmuch as I, who am retired, don't have time to consider all the angles - so where does that leave the rest of the world?
Adam Curtis examines the failure of liberal government systems, positing that they eschewed leadership for systems management. But capital is now managing the systems, corporate and finance structures have eclipsed the role of government. Where government is required, the outcome is dictated by capital. Hence the politicians have become mostly meaningless. No longer concerned with leading, and their management role greatly reduced, they have become empty media figures. From Trump to AOC, cheerleaders for cultural demographics. Bought this guys book. Cool interview.
Wonderful, but too short!
Gurri is really great, and like you Matt, he seems to have his finger on this moment like few others. I’d love to hear a weekly series (maybe a limited podcast) of the two of you discussing these issues at length, with an occasional guest.
I too support this idea! There's a lot more to unpack here. What about a guest spot for Gurri on the new Rolling Stone-less Useful Idiots?
Agreed !!!!!
I’d hope an Idiots guest shot would be forthcoming, but I’m more interested in a deep dive into our weird zeitgeist via two people who seem to have unique understanding of two different, but equally important, aspects of it.
I get the sense that Matt may be the "missing link", the only one to survive the media's mass extinction event...
It was the small, insignificant (to their contemporary giants) life that survived and formed the basis for the next cycle of evolution.
Matt and Glenn and some others are resisting the slide into the current unethical conformity - but - we are in new territory - more like pamphleteering during the very polarized post revolutionary period that preceded the war of 1812 and gave us the Sedition Act.
It is going to be a long tough slog because these god-awful universities are churning out these non-thinking thus unquestioning lemmings who are becoming farther and father removed from the principled fact based journalism Glenn & Matt are dedicated to.
And we have to remember - these youngsters are easily pimped - they get out loaded with debt and fewer and fewer opportunities - and no small venues beyond the internet to eat on.
We have to support that the way we do Matt and Glenn; MONEY not TALK. Not posting.
We are back almost to where the Russian surfs were fifty years before the revolution - and we can't expect these young people to starve for their principles....
Ah, so you did get your mythic and rational stages from Gebser after all.
My favourite line in the Interview "But all the techniques of control wielded by the elites are, like their dreams, stuck in the 20th century and ineffective in the current information landscape".
A perfect statement that can be applied to any area of our lives today-- medicine (COVID), education, politics (older and more patrician leaders), corporations/economics, finance, religion,-- its daunting but beautiful to be in the midst of this paradigm shift.
We need to take responsibility and reflect upon what we want and work with the existing roots (as Gurri states) of the hierarchal base. Change the base so it includes us instead of eliminating us. This is not what the WEF, big tech, governments/ billionaire, WHO decision makers want. They see us as the problem-- we get in the way of their "efficiencies (sic)" and control.
My strategy for the short term pain is to support my community, use my skills to help build alternative ways/structures for doing things and mostly ignore the trolls, live my life-there is always a way to get what you really want, it just takes work. My new definition of a troll is the elites and their minions whether govt, media or popular cultural figures. They are all shilling for the past arcane structures. Their privilege, money, power and influence all depend upon it. They are definitely not shilling for us-- don't feed the trolls.
"don't feed the trolls"
Aw, c'mon. I think you have liked at least 2 or 3 of my posts.
LOL!!! HI Grisha- some trolls are exempt ; ). I love all your posts
I think I disagree with Gurri's assessment of the internet; the tech giants have a more comprehensive stranglehold than he admits. Seems like he's buying into the initial idealism of the web. But haven't read his book yet.
There's always the option of a peer-to-peer mesh network should the existing internet become so hamstrung that it's useless. And there's no doubt other options...
If Matt, David Sirota, the Naked Capitalism crowd, Scheerpost, Consortium News and a dozen others like them put together a large-scale news site, I would subscribe to it even if it was only available through flashdrive dead drops.
We will all get valuable tradecraft training that way.
so deadpan
But how many people will switch to that? I worry that if the tech giants can maintain the illusion of freedom on the internet, they can stem this tide of anti-establishment thought.
They can't even maintain the illusion of freedom even now, they're nowhere near stemming that tide...
It's obvious to a lot of people (and most if not all readers of Taibbi), but we are still a tiny minority without much impact on discourse. I would be happy to learn I'm not in a bubble, but I think I am.
Seems to me the Trump supporters are all anti-establishment and distrust the media-- it's the distrust of the media that a lot of people have in common and is the point, not whether or not your specifically left or right wing. There were enough of them to get Trump elected and nearly re-elected-- if Trump hadn't been such a total idiot he probably would have been re-elected. That seems to me to be more than a bubble. That I don't agree with the vast majority of the beliefs of those sorts of anti-establishment individuals, doesn't mean I don't have in common the belief that the corporate media and the electronic social media is completely under the thumb of the establishment (witness what happened to Parler) if they aren't considered the establishment themselves.
Agree with almost all of this, but I would say that it's important to differentiate between Trump supporters and Trump voters (who have many reasons to vote that way). Also, Trump supporters, in my opinion, more recognize the elite control of the old media institutions, but have a decent faith that they're safe on facebook, twitter, etc. (parler notwithstanding, and parler was still a minority from what I can tell). And if they do recognize the way the tech companies are closing the walls more and more, I don't think the average person (or Trump supporter) knows where to go. Unless you are really politically active and have a bunch of free time, I think you're very likely to accept your new, subtly curated facebook feed once the dissenting pages and voices disappear.
“The American people may be undergoing a psychotic episode, but they are fundamentally sensible.” This is, indeed, optimistic. Makes me smile in the moment. I don’t know whether it’s true.
The quote reminds me of a moment when I was working in a short-term mental-health facility. A man who was quite psychotic when he entered the facility was just beginning to respond to antipsychotic medicine, and it wasn’t a smooth transition. After some delusional discourse he talked lucidly with me for a few minutes, then shook his head and changed his expression, saying,”What the hell was that all about?” and lapsed right back into his delusional system, which was still intact and more compelling.
Kinda like when Biden has a moment of clarity and everyone is like “where did that come from”?
No.
I zeroed in on that nugget too. I love this country, but let's face it, America has been going through not just periodic psychotic episodes but more or less sustained craziness for 400 years. This is why The Crazy One, in his multifarious manifestations, is revered as a national saint when he deigns to appear and grace us.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300105179/hellfire-nation
(don't let the Yale Press imprint put you off, rubes.)
Thank You!
Yes! Before the elites could make tidy little, QUIET agreements with the 4th Estate:
“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years… (censorship)…It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years.
But, the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.
”David Rockefeller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJDFYNkWr8I
Now being " subjected to the lights of publicity" is out of their hands. Perhaps "Autodetermination" will return to the masses or we will lose it forever to the omnipotent elites.
It seems like the advent of big media, in the form of newspapers, had a similar situation, called Yellow Journalism. News was secondary to political influence. I would agree that what we are witnessing is the end of big time media as we understood it. They were in their death-throes trying to do whatever they can think of to maintain relevance. They will not be successful and will leave the stage pretty much the same way they entered it.
I have to admit I wasn't familiar with this guy before. He sounds absolutely great and I will be picking up his book. Great read, Matt.
I'm going to have to pair this book with Christopher Lasch's The Revolt of the Elites. Apparently, like peasants, we are all revolting.
While I know I am, I don't think Matt is revolting ...... har dee har har
How do you know that what you think it true, is actually true?
I flip a two-headed coin and if it comes up tails I know I am wrong. For the sake of accuracy I ALWAYS go for two out of three.
I just ordered