Wake up, people. There is a divide more fundament than left vs. right. That divide is authoritarian vs. freedom. A free and truly diverse society can coexist only as long as we allow everyone to say and do as they please, as long as they are not hurting others. And fantasy hurts, including mean words, don't count.
Seizing power may feel expedient, or even justified, when those in charge share your ideology, but to be blunt, fuck you. If you are not happy with the degree of authority when your party or tribe is out, then you are not morally entitled to wish for that same power--and the chance to be in control, and use it on others.
People fantasize about national schisms and even secession, usually into liberal and/or conservative countries. I would much rather see us divide into the tolerant and puritan, and then watch the puritans eat themselves.
I agree with all of your points except the premise that fascists can be logically negotiated with.
They're into force, in all things.
Yelling people down, cancelling accounts so that their adversaries can rebut, and when push comes to shove -torching things and causing mass disruption.
Personally, I see them as lackeys for the Intel goons who are maintaining their owners' grip on everything.
How dumb do you have to be to still rate yourself “on the spectrum” of left-v-right?
Wealth/income inequality is so large that it’s literally THE ONLY issue in the US right now. Everything else is a distraction, so freedom-v-authoritarianism breaks along class interest as well. Authoritarianism helps protect you from mob justice.
Tell us: how does wealth inequality correlate to inequality in other human characteristics?
And based on history, how does our present material inequality compare to other eras and societies in the past? How does the US and the world look in terms of percent living with little or no income or wealth, and in terms of their material well being? Hint: compare the standard of living of the bottom 10% in the US now to the median family of 100 years ago? Ask those people which condition they would prefer.
Class envy might be useful political rhetoric, but like most rhetoric is largely BS.
That’s your thesis, so don’t ask me to prove it for you. :D
It sounds to me more like your frustration has been co-opted to challenge literally anything but real power centers in the US. Good luck with your perpetual defeat.
It’s so much worse than that though. It’s a way to roll arbitrary fights INTO the culture war. What they essentially said was, “yeah, things suck but I’m going to vote for whichever side looks more purple.” Henceforth, whichever group panders to the purple group will win, so long as it’s one of the controlled opposition parties.
Yeah, but it’s really more of a self-own- unless it’s used by someone actually wealthy like a billionaire. If you work at a PR firm and you craft a phrase like “class envy” it’s a little like saying, “at least I only suck rich dick.”
Only stupid people adhere to tribalism when they can’t eat, they have no homes, and no prospects. I don’t care if the underpass I have to sleep under is painted blue or red.
The Dark Horse Podcast is one of the only "media" outlets that has kept me sane during this pandemic. They are rational, smart as hell, and willing to let the evidence and data guide their choices - something increasingly difficult to find these days.
I'm a regular listener to the Dark Horse podcast and I want to add a couple of things to Bret's answer about the Covid vaccines.
They are ALWAYS circumspect, and while they have cautioned about the newness of the vaccines, they've certainly never condemned them. In fact, they have specifically mentioned that their parents have all been vaccinated.
For what it's worth, I never miss a podcast and I got vaccinated. And I felt better about it for having listened to Bret and Heather. I knew they weren't blindly pushing a political agenda like our pols and media.
My feelings exactly. They admitted that information on the MRNA vaccines was pretty good in terms of effectiveness. They said 95% was, "pretty good." I got the Moderna vaccine because I knew that was in my best interest. Everybody else is going to do the same thing. What Bret and Heather are arguing, absolutely heroically, is that there is unbelievable danger in a uniform narrative when there hasn't been longitudinal research to see the effects, and there can't be. I would add, in a world that is just scratched the surface on vaccinations nothing should be off the table.
Well, they said that, but they also said as a strategy, vaccines, having had CoV 19 and the use of therapeutics, combined is a great way to accomplish herd immunity. Why would you get the vaccine if you had already had the virus? No, don't tell me it's because of the variants.
It's up in the air What one must do, and that is a defensible position. The problem with their position, as well as with getting vaccinated after COVID-19, is nobody knows what the future holds. I have friends who were infected with COVID-19 and received vaccines. That is the government's recommendation of what to do regardless of what Bret and Heather want to say. It is also recommended by Consumer Reports. You can take that advice or you can take Bret and Heather's advice, and we don't know what is correct. Bret and Heather are speculating anyway. Their speculation might have more merit than the average person, and Lord knows they think it does. It is premature to draw any substantial conclusion on the right approach.
Yea, I'm not taking medical advise from Consumer Reports. As for the government / Fauci / CDC, they haven't given my ANY reason to believe much of what the say isn't tied to the teachers unions. Think about the facts that it was the teachers unions giving the CDC talking points. Remember, all these so called experts are political appointees. They no who butters their bread.
Yeah that's it, blame the"teachers union" for public policy at the highest levels. They have so much control over public policy much more than Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, all the Wall Street hedge fund managers that want things a particular way, got to blame the teachers union, nevermind there a multiple teachers unions. It couldn't be lobbying by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Wall Street hedge funds ... nah, got to blame the teachers unions. Fauci us a political employee 40 years over in multiple cabinets. Let's ignore a perfectly good discussion of the job he's doing and blame the teachers unions.
Absolutely! They have never said anyone shouldn't get the vaccine, just been critical of anyone who professes to know that there are not and cannot be any unknown long-term effects of the vaccine. His guests (Malone and Kirsch) in one of the more recent ones maybe went a little further in criticism, talking about the spike in VAERS and relying on anecdotal evidence, but even that wasn't a straight-up "the vaccine is unsafe", and in fact they had both gotten Moderna!
It’s not him I’m worried about. It’s the rest of us that depend on the market place of ideas being open, not censored. Much thanks to Taibbi (and Greenwald) for fighting for us.
Great article. I disagree on one point. Alex Jones' right to free speech is just as important as Bret Weinstein's, because yours and MINE could be viewed as lacking the quality for Weinstein's and being more akin to Jones' by certain "tribally blind" purveyors of censorship, blacklisting and persecution. "I disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it" applies even more to Alex Jones than to Weinstein.
So I said the booting of Jones without due process was a negative development for a variety of reasons, but Jones in my mind had clearly repeatedly committed libel, so the issues there were a lot different. All the same, you don’t start censoring just because the courts are slow.
Only thing I would say is that you live in a world a journalistic norms and standards, legal and otherwise, whereas my thoughts about free speech come from the Wild West of actual speech by non-professionals like myself, mainly on social media, where speech should always be free unless it is a direct call to violence.
For instance, you should be able to yell fire in a crowded movie theater, as long as you believe it is actually on fire. Not sure about Jones, but Trump Supporters do believe the “theater” is on fire.
That justifies their yelling. So to me it’s protected speech. And those hurt by it can certainly seek legal recourse. But suppression of speak, especially when it is engendered by genuine belief, should be the very last option.
Glenn Greenwald's article today said, "I personally agree with the rationale cited in both cases: it becomes dangerous when defamation claims are used to punish or otherwise forbid the expression of political opinion." Perhaps we can set up a debate between you and Glenn. Clearly what he is defending would extend to Alex Jones.
Let's have a battle royale debate GREENWALD v. TAIBBI.
It would be interesting to get conspiracy theorists in court for libel, although that is extraordinarily difficult in the US. David Irving, the Holocaust denier historian did get nailed in the UK, but the laws there are significantly different.
Me too... because letting people say whatever, whenever creates the very opportunity to say the RIGHT thing in defiance of such bullshit and to counter that bullshit properly.
It's not a one-way street... to ban anything today, it opens the door to ban anything else tomorrow.
I wonder how history will treat Trump? As a man, incompetent narcissistic and an ignoramus: there or there about I think . As President, as the office holder, will his endless complaining about establishment conspiracies, corruption and lies be vindicated? I think yes. I also suspect the establishment will be judged to be the greater threat to the American experiment.
There will be two histories written. One will be "official" the other will be the "Howard Zinn" version. The truth will never be widely disseminated.
He was a man of relatively limited knowledge, but good political instinct. He was intellectually lazy, but capable of common sense approaches to problem solving. His narcissism both allowed him to pursue the Presidency, but also kept him from becoming a trusted President.
The two histories that will be written will be
1) He was an evil Hitler who hated minorities and women and caused 6 billion people to die of Covid.
or
2) He was the greatest patriot in the history of the USA, who owned the libs and exposed how Democrats abused everyone and everything, just like QAnon says.
The fact is that the political system in the USA (the elected officials, their party apparati, their spin-controllers in the media) debased itself precisely because an outsider took office. They did not know how to handle the fact that someone broke the code of democracy and was able to win votes without the machine helping. They are still trying to do it - even with him out of office - because they know that it is now possible, and someone smarter and more competent (and more Machiavellian) than Trump may be next.
Bravo- well done. Presidencies are often defined in a single sentence. Obama, black guy. W, 911 and WMD. Clinton, deregulation and blow jobs. HW Bush, wimp. Reagan, Cold War. Carter, malaise. Ford, fell down the stairs. Nixon, China and Watergate.
IMO, even the GloboCaps don’t trot out Obama’s Nobel Prize as an argument anymore, it was about as valid as Hunter Biden’s new status in the art world.......
You are a fan of government, for myself, not so much. Otherwise I liked your list, it’s clearly more constructive than mine. One quibble, Reagan’ being on watch for defeat of communism might be more important than the air traffic controllers strike/firing.
I agree w/you if I think about it for RR but those were my first impressions (union background). I think EPA and DOEnergy were really because I had to make room (on library shelving). I mean think about it from a librarian's POV---the gov't added whole new depts. and the documents are alphabetized by dept. name. Don't even get me started on how exhausting it was when HEW broke up. (I know the woeful tales of reorganizing the documents library when a president signs a new dept. into being are really small beans).
Trump: orange man bad/racist. Obama: Ellen, drones. W: 9/11, mass spying. Clinton: blowjobs, NAFTA, Nazi crime bill. HW: "Read my lips." Cheney shot a dude in the face.
He was a silly joke. A crackpot with no discernable positive traits, save a knack for self-promotion. Policywise, he was a generic Republican who surrounded himself with generic Republicans and ex Goldman Sacks execs (despite pretending to be an outsider) whose signature legislation was a massive giveaway to the wealthy (especially himself. and this after "this tax reform won't be good for me, believe me") and who ended in utter disgrace after lousy handling of the pandemic, being so pathetic and delusional that he couldn't face up to losing an election and retreated instead into conspiracy bullshit, and whose followers attempted to kill our legislature due to being so stupid they believed his pathetic delusions. That's it. That is Trump. In what reality are his endless complaints about conspiracies vindicated? He came off not as prophetic or possessing any special knowledge, but rather as pitiful. Completely surrounded by a bubble of sycophants who would tell him obvious fantasies that he was too dumb to see through.
Yep & Obama was a well spoken urbane con man who rose up at a time of national desperation, promising oodles of justice for "da little guy" in that preacherly cadence that has bamboozled American rubes since America started shitting out rubes. Once in office he quickly realized who was buttering his bread so he got down on his knees & took a big fat banker cock in his mouth & began sucking, not letting up for 8 long hard years. This attention to semenic details led to him living on Cape Cod & writing 3 memoirs as if anyone sane would care to read 3 books about his fucking life. As a side job to his main blow job, he ushered the healthcare challenged into an already bloated & corrupt private insurance system & then bragged about it like it was an accomplishment. Liberals everywhere, especially upscale white liberals, worship him like he was a deity and dwell on every one of his rhetoric laden platitudes like they were aromatic farts out of God's asshole.
Yep & Obama was a well spoken urbane man who rose up at a time of national desperation, promising oodles of justice for men, women & farm animals everywhere in that preacherly cadence that has enthralled Americans since America collectively learned how to spell the word "enthralled." Once in office he quickly realized he was God's right hand on Earth so he got down on his knees & prayed to the Lord Jesus, not letting up once for 8 long years. This attention to seminary detail led to him living on Cape Cod, writing 3 exceptionally wonderful memoirs & earning the honors & respect of those fun loving cut ups in the National Security State. President O-Ain't He Sweet also had many side jobs including ushering at a local movie theater for the blind, offering to hand clean all the lead out of Flint's water & successfully helping stem a Middle Eastern terrorist population explosion by allowing his VP, Joe Biden, to drone on & on until the offending scofflaws all just died of boredom, peacefully hugging their Korans & prayer mats. Liberals everywhere, especially upscale bunny loving squirrel hugging liberals, think he was the presidential equivalent of chocolate ice cream smothered in whipped cream & sprinkles. Stephen Colbert, that great philosopher of comedic fluff & positivity once offered to "drink him in" in an entirely non sexual & platonic way.
Thanks so much for this --- seriously, hilarious! But don't forget, per his hand-picked veep and our now pres --- he is a clean black guy. So cogent; but only if spewed by an old white Democratic male.
Too hard to keep track anymore. Think I will just speak my mind. Could be stormy times ahead. Smiling emoji.
Why did you assume I assumed anything? I could have done the same thing with Bush The Addled or Billy Bob Kiddie Diddler Clinton. Obama is just proof that, in America, political shitheads come in many colors.
And, of course, liberals worship him like a deity. Mostly white liberals. White liberals who never get anywhere near black people. Especially black people like George Floyd. So that makes the Obama cult extra special funny. To me. Maybe not to you. Don't care.
By the way Mr. Larouche, by using "do tell" at the end of your comment you instantly forced me to visualize you as resembling Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, pinky pressed against your lower lip as you typed. So thanks for the morning giggle. For me. Maybe not for you. Don't care.
Oh I agree that whatever his beliefs were before, the instant he was in office Obama compromised them. And while i wouldn't use quite the same language, I can't help but also agree that his administration's abject surrender to investment banks was completely absurd. And yes, the ACA is right wing bullshit, but it is at least better than what we had before before. I would point out that that even though it is right wing bullshit, the Republicans still fought it tooth and nail. And they still had lower to go as Trump showed us.
I find it odd that people continue to call someone a "silly joke" and other things about his lack of competence.....The guy won the nomination and then won the election. He also had a whole lotta people working overtime to try to sabotage him. Yes, he's a piece of shit, but he certainly isn't the fucking ignoramus everyone thinks or that he has been made out to be.
"He was a man of relatively limited knowledge, but good political instinct. He was intellectually lazy, but capable of common sense approaches to problem solving. His narcissism both allowed him to pursue the Presidency, but also kept him from becoming a trusted President."
I mean, one can't be any fairer than that. Well said, Pub.
OK Trump himself as an individual, you feel exhausted, I sympathize.
Where do you plan to deposit his 75 million voters? They are a supreme inconvenience: so stupid so uneducated so wrong so white. So what? How do you shelve them?
My problem is the crowding out discussion of the topic at hand. I don't think there's any shortage of opportunity to discuss Trump while there is an acute shortage of spaces where we are allow to talk about the weirdnesses relating to the pandemic.
The problem is that the whole internet censorship debate begins and ends with "Factchecking Trump". Without the craziness of the left in seeking fault with everything the man did, we wouldn't be in this quandary.
It's not this forum that brings everything to Trump, it's that the problems that we face are all because of the political machine's reaction to the man. *They* still can't let him go. He's still banned on the platforms, he's still talked about on the cable stations, he's still being investigated by Democrat Attys. Gen.
Every action by a cop is his fault. Even the border crossings *this* year are his fault, if you believe Psaki (which hopefully nobody does).
"The Trump election inspired a loss of faith in democracy."
Still struggling with this. I take as a given that both parties cheat in elections. Of course they do. But i think for the most part (excepting, say, hanging chaddery) that the effect is negligible, and advantages probably roughly cancel each other out. I still believe that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden won legitimately.
I bang on about this too much. But Donald Trump apparently won his primary fair and square. Does anyone really think the Republican establishment preferred him over, say, Jeb! the Democratic primary was rigged af. Superdelegates, money, looting state parties, DNC voodoo, don't even know where to start. And this is the party whining about loss of faith in democracy? Give me a fucking break.
I've only lived in blue states as a voting adult (4 or them so far), so i can't really speak for red ones. The Democratic parties and governments in those states are just so dirty and corrupt. I'm sure that, say, Texas and Florida are just as bad though.
I don't disagree at all with your statement(s). I just think both sides are corrupted by their owners. And probably toast the owners with each other at the pub after all their hard work... maintaining the circus with which to distract us.
The truth of it is that certain people on both sides cheat as much as they can get away with it, every election, to the point that we must currently accept it as an invisible part of the process. So I would say to Trump supporters, "You lost", but what that means is that the other side cheated better than you did.
Every institution in this country that is broken remains so because it suits certain people in power to have it that way. That is why our medical system, our immigration system, our election system, our disaster response, etc. remain the way they are. If people in power really wanted to fix those things, they wouldn't remain broken. They are able to act quite quickly and firmly when the powers-that-be are actually interested in a change.
Hi Matt, I just subscribed to this Substack because of your coverage of Bret and the censorship issue. This, and the lack of algorithmic transparency in how we get our information suggested to us, cannot be allowed to stand in a free society. If we the people aren't trusted to make sense for ourselves, we won't have democracy much longer; certainly not one worth the name.
Me also Ben. Great coverage Matt, thank you. Bret and Heather have a combination of reason, insight, vision and courage that is so desperately needed right now. They ground they’re arguments in the available evidence, gather the stats but can also can discern the pattern within the pattern. No coincidence that their skills are being thwarted by the powerful. The censored idea is not necessarily the truthful one, but in this case the attempt at silencing them speaks volumes. If intelligent reasoned scientist are threatening the powerful, then to me this is all the more reason to listen to the very thing they don’t want us to hear.
Also, I think it might be a good idea for those who have the means to subscribe to Brett through Patreon, I think he is a voice of many of us, "they" came for him and in one way or another are making his life financially hard - we've got to make sure "they" don't get him.
Thanks Matt. A critical issue well presented. Perhaps in a future article you might examine this purported truth: “The Trump election inspired a loss of faith in democracy.”
Oh stop it. Biden is a bland centrist politician, whose primary distinguishing characteristic is tireless support for credit card companies. His supporters are basically Democrats, a large, big tent party that is controlled by its centrist corporate wing. Neither he nor his party are bringing in any "different form of government". Unlike, say, Republicans who wholeheartedly support the violent overthrow of America and the installation of a joke of a reality show host as dictator for life. Take your right wing nutjob bullshit back to Breitbart.
Liberal here who never voted for Trump. Biden may have been a bland centrist at one point; today he is compromised both physically and ethically. Democrats are lined up in support of HR1, guaranteed to bring one-party rule to the USA for a hundred years. They're lined up in favor of discrimination against Jews, whites, anyone who fails to demonstrate sufficient zeal in the party's march toward authoritarianism. The party as a whole supports censorship and denial of due process based on tribal characteristics.
That defines a different form of government from the liberal Western democracies arising from the Enlightenment. I was a liberal Democrat from 1960 to 2009 (yes. I'm older than dirt). I have no party today.
As an aside, it's astonishing how much abuse and 'Anti-Semitism' so-called Jews are will to take from Democrats. I have had this discussion with my Jewish husband and he insists most Jews are not Jewish 'religiously' as they are atheists today.
You've self-identified elsewhere in these threads as having once worked with an assortment of spooks, military guys, government officials, etc., in some capacity. If this is true, I would like to think from your experiences you come to TK with a unique perspective not shared by most here. That's a pretty dire forecast above. And it's rather broad in its generalizations. Anything that stands out in your mind that might bring all this to fruition? And why, for instance, you single out the democrats for their authoritarianism?
And, I would point out, that in 2016, after Trump won, there were a couple Democrats whining that they didn't want to certify the electoral college votes. It was Biden who gaveled them down and proceeded with the process. And as much as Democrats hated Trump, I didn't see a hoard of them rush into Congress with zip ties and nooses while police are leading them away from the legislators who are barricading the doors for protection.
After the three letter agencies inserted themselves in to the election process and the DOJ stood silent maybe it is time to flush this entire government down the toilet bowel of history.
Trump was just a visible symbol that exposed the little man behind the curtain. The shadow gov't had to come out from its' hidden lair to dump Trump. Trump himself is irrelevant but his flushing the real power behind the elected puppets into the open will be his legacy. The complete panic on the part of the Deep State was a sight to behold. Both Democrats and Republicans are cowered completely by the permeant bureaucracy that never dies, sleeps or forgets. It never grows smaller do matter the POTUS or his policies. Solhenitsyn rightly identified them as the "organs of government." A body cannot live without its' organs. We have a case of the lower bowel dictation to the brain.
"“The affirmative task we have now is, uh, to actually, uh, create, uh, New World Order because the global order is changing again. And the institutions and the rules that worked so well in the post-World War II era for decades, they need to be strengthened, and some need to be changed…. So we have to lead. We have to update the rules of the road, and we have to do it in a way that maximizes benefits for everyone, because it’s overwhelmingly in our interest that China prosper, that Mongolia prosper. …We have to level the playing field.”
“You mean, Mr. Biden, you are more concerned about making sure China and Mongolia prosper than American workers?"
I really hope you're right about Biden not changing much. His parroting of Great Reset "build back better" rhetoric makes me worry about the degree to which he's captured by the companies (tech, pharma, credit card) who are looking to bring "social credit" (rebranded as "social impact investing") to the US with covid as the excuse
Of course the main problem is propagandists and their following like you on both sides. The Republicans aren't the problem. the Democrats aren't the problem. The Republicans and Democrats are the problem. Get with the program and realize your side is messed up too.
Well, clearly, because convoluted identity politics jargon is a club they can use to bludgeon the economic populist wing of their party with, who they hate more than they ever hated the right.
Obama was a legit electoral victory, both times, because the MSM/ICs had great polls, no reason to activate their resources. His election a lighthouse beacon that the USA was beyond racism. Anybody who suggests otherwise is trying to fool you. I did not vote of him either time but I totally accepted his legitimacy.
Same with Trump 2016. Polls convinced the MSM and ICs and Deep State that Hillary was a shoo in. No actual vote intervention required because the polls convinced them the bitch slap on Bernie plus MSM denialism on legit DNC email leaks was enough. Hillary was a done deal. Then the unthinkable happened and Trump won, legit.
But 2020? Trump was way down in the polls but everyone including the ICS knew those numbers were fake. So the ICs worked their overseas elections magic here, activating Dominion plus the usual foot soldiers, because no way they would make the 2016 mistake again. Every cheat previously used on foreign soil was used here. Ohio may as well be Burma to the Deep State. Hunter laptop was Russian propaganda, remember? LOL!
AZ audit will make clear the corruption of the vote. Or the suppression of the audit will make the same case.
Our gov't, Dem & Rep, legislative and especially executive, is captured by the globalist, giant corporations. Trump stood against them, his mortal sin. We need more Americans like that, be it Trump or another patriot willing to throw themselves into the breech.
Question is, are you an American? Or are you a blip ceding all power to giant multinational corporations as run by the social credit score of YT FB or the CCP?
Are any of you commenters in Illinois? If you voted for him, why? First Black President. That is a wonderful thing, but apparently all you white people doing that meant nothing because this country is more "racist" than ever?
Before being nominated for Pres, what did he ever accomplish --- seriously --- name something. You voted for him because he was Black. And, tragically, he could have accomplished a lot if he wasn't afraid of losing re-election. He "evolved" on gay marriage after he was re-elected. Just another Chicago politician.
But good for him, Biden is, beyond his wildest dreams, Obama 2.0.
Born and raised in Chicago. Still live here. You do not become a democrat of standing in the state of Illinois (much less Cook County) if you’re not in bed with criminals. That’s just a fact.
Well intended or not, he was raised, promoted, and ordained by a sinister, criminal organization….
I’m not an Obama hater, but anyone in this state knows that only criminals get standing in the Illinois Democratic Party.
Supposedly didn't Obama come to Illinois because of Tony Reszko? Why did he come to Illiinos? Didn't he and M get their home from Rezko? Not saying they didn't pay SOMETHING for it. Wasn't M getting paid 6 figures for a basically ghost payroll job at an Illinois hospital, allegedly? Yes, it has been the hard knock life for Barack and M as members of the Illinois Democratic Party.
Obama went too far, too fast and got captured by the GloboCaps. I agree his election in 08’ in the abstract-the election of the first African American president-was a good sign for American democracy, but the product occupying the WH was abhorrent, policy-wise. I’ve never heard anything personally negative or obnoxious about Obama.
He liked his smokes. Funny how big a deal eating "bad for you" McDonald's was for Clinton and Trump, but nobody ever took Barry to task for the cancer sticks.
Obama just couldn't keep his mouth shut and he got involved in too may local race issues. He inflamed the country, when people were looking towards him to do the opposite. He continues as a flame-thrower but most people don't pay any attention today.
It's all good. He has his sea level mansion now, so he'll be underwater 30 years ago. Wait. Oops. Maybe the Swedish Doom Goblin will go over with her SuperSoaker and spray him down for AOC's camera crew. Grifters gotta grift.
idiot trump supporters? Obama did more harm to this nation than anyone else; everything you accuse trump of, obama and biden have done. get your head outta your arse.
I was being ironic, my sentence structure wasn’t great. I meant elite don’t like democracy because they get stuck with what they consider to be trumps idiot supporters. I don’t think Trump supporters are idiots I think they have a legitimate concerns.
There are idiot supporters of all politicians. AOC has idiot supporters. Pelosi has idiot supporters. Gaetz has idiot supporters. McConnell has idiot supporters. Reagan had idiot supporters, so did Obama.
Not all idiots are the same kind of idiot. Some are morons. Some are half-wits. A few may be imbeciles. They don't have the same lapses in knowledge and intellect, but rest assured, they are out there, every election.
But what are the implications of voters mattering when people can't know who to believe about basic reality.
For the last five years, I've beennthe home health care provider for my elderly mother. It's a 24/7 job, but it leaves me an almost insane amount of time to absorb lots of information.
I do leftist podcasts, read articles and books, etc. I have lots of formal education and try to sift through it all critically. I have to be an outlier in terms of the high-information voter, and then I read this stuff, and I don't what the fuck to believe.
I believe in democracy and the collective wisdom of the common man, but with media the way it is now, I'm getting scared of democracy.
Thank you for your project to fix this, but I don't know if it can be fixed.
Masha Gessen has written a couple excellent pieces on this, using Russia as the example. The idea isn't to propagandize you into believing some specific thing, but it's to get you to the point where you question everything and are unable to discern reality. So, the average person just says fuck it and buys another bottle of vodka. The un-average person (you) remains coherent, but withdraws. Either way, the dominant power wins.
I have no solution other than to stay coherent and try not to withdraw.
The more you learn the more you know how ignorant you are. I've been listening more to voices outside the mainstream for 2-3 years and it can get frustrating to the point of anger when you see how much bullshit is fed to us daily. Just try to find people who seem to be more interested in speaking truth than increasing their subscription numbers and pass it along to those around you if they're receptive.
That's a very good point which I had not thought about, but here we are post-2020 and more Americans than ever believe their vote doesn't. What a flip.
Those who lost faith in democracy because Trump won an election are simple whiny simpletons. Guess what: in a democracy the candidate you want to win isn't going to do so every time. As Matt says below his victory is weirdly a good sign that voters matter. Trump won because the Democrat party nominated a horrible elitist candidate, uniquely despised by many, who couldn't be bothered to campaign for the entire month of August before the election. Further, and at least as important, the Democrat party abandoned middle America in favor of global elitism. HRC and Obama before her, insulted those left behind by the globalists, and they finally got pissed off enough to vote for just about ANYONE who showed a little empathy for their plight. Trump won more because of what he wasn't than for what he was. If Dems don't figure this out, and it doesn't look like they will, they are in for more crushing defeats.
I thought for sure the DNC was going to get the hint from 2016 that the populace is sick of corporate funded warmongering presidents. It wasn't until Bernie got bronze a second time that I realized how bull headed they really are. I found it hilarious how close 2020 was, beating Trump was almost there for the taking and Biden barely managed to squeak by.
By whom? The loss of faith in democracy was not by the Trump voters... but rather the entrenched political class (and its satellite professionals - lawyers, bureaucrats, "journalists")
Yeah, I ordered it a couple of days ago. I'll decide after reading it whether to read the rest of him. I had always been fooled by the "agreeable personality" Matt describes, so I thought Frank couldn't possibly be shaking things up.
I would argue that trump voters long ago lost their faith in democracy, and the next logical step to this loss of faith was voting for a candidate like trump.
I think Jeff was closer on this one...."Trump won more because of what he wasn't than for what he was." I work with a lot of Trumpers, it's awful, but it's what the industry is. Dems did not have a clue to just how despised HRC was/is as she represented everything that is gutting their life. Whether or not anyone has a renewed faith in democracy or the opposite is unknowable. Faith is complicated; voting against everything you despise is not so complicated.
Trump's election was a failure of democracy to the left, not because the system rigged it, but because it has proven to the newly defined Branch Covidians the Democracy allows deplorable people the ability to vote. While that right cannot be denied outright, the new angle is to stack the deck and change the rules of the game as to eliminate this deplorable groups ability to have a real impact on outcomes.
This tactic has been practiced in places like California and the next step is a national release.
Have you noticed the many states stacking the deck to prevent people of color and Democrats from voting. EVERYONE should have a path to voting; there should be national holidays to vote and the polls stay open all night if necessary. That would be actual democracy.
The issue is for some reason the Trump-lovers found their way to the polls. The Trump-haters needed their votes collected on their behalf. This is the issue at stake... whether or not people actually care enough about the outcome to place their own ballot, or whether we have by-proxy elections via political party mechanism. Both of the parties like the concept of the proxy vote... because they can manage it. The Republicans haven't signed on because they don't yet know how to turn Trump voters into Jeb! type supporters.
The issue is about what we can believe, and I do think our adversarial court system is as close as we can get.
These issues have been tried in courts and were tossed out in resounding detail. Local judges aren't quite as subject to these larger distortions, so if you or anyone can show these claims you make, they are still available to you.
Baseball pitchers making millions of dollars sneak Spider Tack onto their fingers to increase their spin rate by 300rpm because it gives them a perceived advantage. You don't think that either party in a 2 party system doesn't look to harness any advantage it can when harvesting ballots without a foolproof chain of custody?
I would say that "The Trump election inspired a loss of faith in the people that voted for Trump." It was simply incidental that democracy itself was bad because it allowed for Trump supporters to support him. the answer is, of course, that democracy doesn't work because it allowed Trump to be elected. therefore democracy and all its components must be exorcised. This includes the supreme court, the filibuster, the electoral college, etc... It is just all an accident that these changes would help democrats and hurt republicans. If they were ever enacted and Republicans somehow ever gained power again, the left would howl for the return of these things, saying anything less would be racist.
I think Gary Heminger nailed it. Don’t worry about Trump, the loss of faith is with the 75 million people who put him in power and the left/elite revile us. They are on the right side of history. The right side of history, what a justification, with that level of certainty anything is possible. Brace yourself! Our a illiberal moment has just begun. Be afraid.
So now the comments will be dominated by politics. Pity. I was looking forwards to something actually interesting and informative and a bit less worn out.
Biden has a NON Democratic NON Republic Agenda. His phony equality will doom this country because that's what is required from this country for other countries to prosper, the death of the US:
"“The affirmative task we have now is, uh, to actually, uh, create, uh, a<u><b> New World Order </b></u>because the global order is changing again. And the institutions and the rules that worked so well in the post-World War II era for decades, they need to be strengthened, and some need to be changed…. So we have to lead. We have to update the rules of the road, and we have to do it in a way that maximizes benefits for everyone, because it’s overwhelmingly in our interest that China prosper, that Mongolia prosper. …We have to level the playing field. ”
“You mean, Mr. Biden, you are more concerned about making sure China and Mongolia prosper than American workers?"
I thought my use of the word “purported” would indicate that Matt’s statement about the trump election was not to be accepted on face value and needed serious scrutiny and examination.
By the way, I didn't vote for Obama but I didn't lose faith in democracy when he won. I just lost a little bit of faith in voters to make a quality pick. Because I think they voted for Social Justice that day and that has led to where we are today and what Matt decries in this article. Because Social Justice isn't really justice.
I did as well, but, unfortunately, Obama acted as a neo-lib in PC clothing, just like his post-presidency career. Clarence Thomas, Sen. Tim Scott, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’ Neal and even rappers-Ice Cube, Willie Dee-have been far more inclined to human brotherhood based approaches to race relations than the neo lib tool Obama.
That's not "social justice." Not to quibble or cavil unnecessarily, but I think we all have to be careful here. "Social Justice," anchored historically in its traditional meaning, is presumably a set of ideas that have been pursued, fought for, bandied about and defended since humans first formed governments and organized clearly defined cultures. It remains a rather vague and malleable term.
However, the pursuit of "social justice" has been traditionally on behalf of the lower strata of society, pursued by those seeking a greater degree of autonomy within a given society, or sometimes by advocates from the upper strata. These groups traditionally have been the poor, people practicing heterodox religions or harboring beliefs, minorities, individuals in the grips of bondage or economic servitude, etc.
The chief characteristic that has defined these groups throughout history, is a distinct lack of social "power" that might otherwise allow them to formally articulate grievances, and the ability to secure redress of these grievances through the mechanisms of a formal "justice" system or legislative body that are recognized as "legitimate" by the general citizenry.
The term "social justice," it seems to me, has been casually misappropriated here by two factions to define an amorphous, incoherent, shifting set of demands, grievances, etc. advocated by one faction, and equally opposed by another.
The cautionary point I wish to make is that when two factions employ the same term to define two sets of ideas that are at cross purposes, the purchase those words hold on the language begins to erode.
In the spirit of Orwell, and regardless of what iron one has in this fire, we ought not to allow language to become a casualty in the debate.
I certainly agree that language and the meaning of words should be shared and constant. One of the most divisive and destabilizing aspects of our world today is the postmodernist’s game of manipulating language. It’s preventing us from communicating because where we sit now is left and right have their own meanings of many words.
My understanding of the demands of today’s Progressives is they want courts and governments to make decisions and distribute power and benefits according to identities, not according to merit that has been judged by an objective standard. They are calling that Social Justice.
I’ve been thinking that we’ve always had Social Justice under that definition, but it’s historically bestowed benefits in the US to white people, largely at the expense of black people. It’s the institution we’ve been trying to rid ourselves of for 50-60 years. Instead of pushing it out, Progressives just want to turn the tables and start taking the (ill-gotten) benefits from whites and bestowing them on blacks and other identities that have been out of power.
It's an interesting point that both Matt and you make. I'm thinking that Democrats lost faith in Democracy because Trump won, and Republicans lost faith in Democracy because Biden won. I doubt those two ideas have anything to do with elections or Democracy, but rather have everything to do with the sorting that has taken place in our society. We hang around with and get our information from people who agree with us and tell us what we want to hear. And we don't trust the other side.
Wrong. Almost all were tossed for “lack of standing” and no evidence evaluated. In a truly Orwellian twist cases brought before the election were deemed “too early” those brought after “too late”. No question there was extensive fraud. The question is whether it was determinative
Did you read the orders? (because that's the explanation people who didn't usually give)
Even with standing being dispositive, the courts went through the evidence. Arguably the best case for Trump was in Pennsylvania, and while the court dismissed it on standing, it also spent a couple hundred pages on showing the evidence didn't meet the low bar to proceed on.
Judges know that their decisions will live on as public record, and most of them take their roles seriously.
This is accurate. But something to keep in mind about this sorting. It certainly isn't democrat/republican or right/left. There is a substantial number of people who want no part of this sorting, and see it as a means of advancing the agendas of the few at the expense of the many. The few are united in their pursuit of their agenda. They are the ones who hold overwhelming most of the economic power in the U.S, and the means to deploy it to their ends.
The many have many agendas, but few they agree on, and hence the pursuit of these agendas is scattershot with little chance of coalescing into a single mutually agreed upon agenda. A single agenda informed by many agendas that might achieve real goals and offer relief from the current chaos that surrounds us. That is the task before us. And it is chaos.
I think there is a sorting according to personality and world view. People moving from county to city and from city to country. People moving from blue states to red states. There's sorting according to where we get our news. Maybe call it epistemological sorting.
There are a lot of problems with this sorting, not the least of which is we end up with a lot of people with conflicting realities.
I first became aware of the likelihood of a lab leak by simply googling Wuhan in mid-January 2020, and noting that a virology lab doing coronavirus research was in a densely populated area.
By the end of that month, Zero Hedge posted a lengthy run of speculation on the role of the lab, concentrating on the human factor, namely recent hires at the lab who might not have been well-trained enough to work in such an exacting and dangerous environment. ZH’s twitter account was then suspended.
In April 2020 I read Yuri Deigin’s essay in Medium about the scientific basis for the likelihood that the virus was the result of GOF research. Weinstein interviewed him in June (?) 2020. As Eric Weinstein—Bret’s brother—has said the purpose of propaganda is to create an unwarranted societal consensus. Likewise, the purpose of censorship is to prevent the creation of a warranted consensus.
In mid-December 2019, I was surprised to see dozens of videos leaking out of China and landing on Twitter about something afoot at hospitals. In one such video you see people milling about an emergency room entrance, holding up phones, obviously trying to figure out what the hell is happening. An ambulance pulls up and hospital staff rush to take patients into the hospital. On the way out, the drivers snatch at least three people who were recording with phones and stuff them into the ambulance. I shared this Twitter video with a friend sitting nearby, marveling at how an ambulance became a paddy wagon in the blink of an eye. This image, to me, captures the nature of the current “safety state.”
You actually don't have to look to China to see a government that has a cavalier attitude towards pathogens they play God with. The US does the same. In 2019 the CDC shut down Fort Detrick citing these violations:
OBSERVATION 1
Severity level: Serious
The CDC reported that an individual partially entered a room multiple times without the required respiratory protection while other people in that room were performing procedures with a non-human primate on a necropsy table.
“This deviation from entity procedures resulted in a respiratory occupational exposure to select agent aerosols,” the CDC wrote.
OBSERVATION 2
Severity level: Serious
The CDC reported that the lab did not ensure that employee training was properly verified when it came to toxins and select agents.
“These failures were recognized through video review of laboratorians’ working in BSL3 and ABSL3 labs,” their report said. “[These] indicate the [lab]’s means used to verify personnel understood the training had not been effective, leading to increased risk of occupational exposures.”
The CDC went on to specify that a laboratorian who was not wearing appropriate respiratory protection was seen multiple times “partially entering” a room where non-human primates that were infected with [redacted] were “housed in open caging.” They also observed a laboratorian disposing of waste in a biohazardous waste bin without gloves on.
OBSERVATION 3
Severity level: Moderate
In this violation observation, the CDC went into more detail on the incident of the worker not wearing gloves while disposing of biohazardous waste, writing that “biosafety and containment procedures must be sufficient to contain the select agent or toxin.”
The corrective action they recommended was to confirm that relevant personnel have been trained to wear gloves to prevent exposure to hazardous materials.
OBSERVATION 4
Severity level: Serious
In this observation, the CDC notes that the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases had “systematically failed to ensure implementation of biosafety and containment procedures commensurate with the risks associated with working with select agents and toxins.”
The violation specifically observed involved “entity personnel [...] propping open” a door while removing “large amounts of biohazardous waste” from an adjacent room, “[increasing] the risk of contaminated air from [the room] escaping and being drawn into the [redacted]” where the people working “typically do not wear respiratory protection.”
OBSERVATION 5
Severity level: Moderate
The CDC reported that the laboratory failed to safeguard against unauthorized access to select against. They wrote that personal protective equipment worn while decontaminating something contaminated by a select agent had been stored in open biohazard bags, in an area of the facility that the CDC has redacted for security reasons.
“By storing regulated waste in this area, the entity did not limit access to those with access approval,” they wrote.
OBSERVATION 6
Severity level: Moderate
The CDC reports that someone at the lab did not maintain an accurate or current inventory for a toxin.
OBSERVATION 7
Severity level: Low
The CDC reports that a building at the Fort Detrick laboratory didn’t have a “sealed surface to facilitate cleaning and decontamination.” This included cracks around a conduit box, cracks in the ceiling, and a crack in the seam above a biological safety cabinet.
Keenly aware of Ft. Detrick and its August 2019 closure because I live not far from it. The hypothesis that the virus could have been lab-generated does not mean it could have come from only the Wuhan lab, as China's spokespersons were quick to point out. I'd add that governments as well as many researchers not only have a cavalier attitude towards pathogens but a sociopathic/psychopathic stance towards humans.
"On the way out, the drivers snatch at least three people who were recording with phones and stuff them into the ambulance. I shared this Twitter video with a friend sitting nearby, marveling at how an ambulance became a paddy wagon in the blink of an eye."
That is incredible. I wonder if we will ever know the truth about any of this. If we do, will the majority of people care?
What struck me as incredible was not that it happened but that videos like that were trickling onto Chinese SM, then being reposted onto Twitter for several days. I wish I were tech savvy enough to figure out how to copy videos out of YT, Twitter, etc. Receipts are necessary to stop the memory holing.
"The ostensible goal of [GoF] experiments— in which researchers manipulate already-dangerous pathogens to create or increase communicability among humans—is to develop tools to monitor the natural emergence of pandemic strains. Opponents, however, warn that the risk of laboratory escape of these high-consequence pathogens far outweighs any potential advance."
I first became aware when I looked up " Zoonotic Transition" because that's what they were studying. Jamie Metzl, a member of the World Health Organization's International Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing, has speculated that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China."When they have outbreaks in China, the zoonotic jump [of the virus from animal to humans] tends to happen in the south.
Scientists studying bat diseases at China's maximum-security laboratory in Wuhan were engaged in a massive project to investigate animal viruses alongside leading military officials.
'Wuhan Lab Was Engaged In Military Activity With PLA': Ex ...
'Wuhan Lab was engaged with military activity': Mike Pompeo. Pompeo added that the Wuhan Lab was engaged in activities connected to China's People's Liberation Army (PLA)
This brings US one step closer to what really happened. as the next question would be,
If they were, this seems to be pretty tame stuff (so far). GOF research is required whatever the intent, which may alone be a reason to forbid it internationally.
Weinstein's and Heying's quack stance on the COVID vaccines is what ultimately made me stop watching their podcast. And make no mistake, it's a quack stance: A PhD in Biology, which sounds fancy and gives an impression of subject-matter expertise to the lay public, is in no way an expert on virology, immunology, or the topic of what would make, say, a "traditional" vaccine safer than this new technology, which prompts your body to mount an immune response to a small harmless piece of the vaccine -- ie, which works very much like all other vaccines -- and we have mountains of evidence of its safety and efficacy at this point.
That being said, my personal decision to stop watching them is a far cry from YouTube deciding that no one can watch them. Their heterodox views sometimes land them squarely in the land of common sense. For example, the lab leak hypothesis is a lot more credible than the zoonotic hypothesis, and they were some of the first people willing to discuss it. We can't simply rule out a lab leak for the sake of political convenience, which is exactly what the international scientific community, several powerful governments, and the mainstream media all attempted to do in early 2020. Now that a zoonotic origin has been drummed so hard into the public imagination that it falls in the category of "things every smart person 'knows,'" it's very hard to revisit the lab leak hypothesis, but let's give Weinstein and Heying credit where credit is due -- they didn't back down.
And that's why, even though in my view they are total cranks on the subject of the vaccine (and worse: in portraying themselves as experts on the topic to an undiscerning public, when they are not, and they know -- or should know -- they are not), I fully support them NOT being censored in any way, no matter how much damage their views about the vaccine might potentially cause.
From the point of view of pure self-interest, we can't shut up people with views we dislike without making ourselves vulnerable to being shut up when we have something unpopular to say. (Ira Glasser speaks eloquently on this; and it's particularly sad to see the ACLU jump on the woke zombie-bus and become as censorious as everyone else in the mainstream -- for example, on the topic of protecting the speech rights of those who perceive serious medical and ethical harms of a blind "affirmative" approach for youth with gender dysphoria. The ACLU is content to shut those people up and claim it's "hate speech," when they seem for all the world to be experienced professionals raising good-faith concerns. But that's a whole 'nother topic.)
So...Trump, Alex Jones, and Weinstein/Heying -- I might hate some of what they say, and yet I defend their right to say it. Let them speak, and ultimately history will be the judge of who was right.
Unfortunately our leaders/elite have lied to us so frequently and comprehensively that we are especially open to voices and thoughts they are trying to eliminate
Well reasoned and stated! It is troubling that the censorious do not grasp that one can simply stop listening. Perhaps this is because the censorious do not hesitate to force feed their ideas and opinions and see themselves and others as helpless pate geese.
This new MRNA shot stimulates the body‘s cells to create the spike protein of the virus. The spike protein is what was found to be producing the most serious ill effects. The spike protein was supposed to stay locally and just cause your body to mount an immune response. However it has been discovered that shot causes the body to create millions of spike protein and they do not remain local. The spike protein appears to be the culprit in the adverse reactions being experienced.
You're repeating things you've heard secondhand, and yes, that is quackery. You don't understand what the spike protein is or what it does, in the virus itself or as part of the response created by the vaccine. Show me the published evidence from subject-matter experts, along with published evidence of harm, and then we can discuss it.
That is your assumption. I ask you to show me published evidence from subject matter experts that there is no harm. You made the first assertion. Prove no harm.
One can't prove a negative -- and if you had the most rudimentary background in science, you'd know how ridiculous that statement is. The millions of doses are out there now, in millions of bodies, and the safety and efficacy is pretty obvious at this point. It's a very short while to full approval by FDA.
Just a cursory scroll through a few pages of https://www.openvaers.com/openvaers leads me to suspect there is a safety signal there, that needs addressing.
Julie is correct when she recommends that it is actually you that have the burden of proof to refute the 97,226 pages gathered.
Another option is for for skeptics to go and collect the money on offer from Steve Kirsch:
"...To win the $1M prize, all you have to do is to provide a convincing argument that the NIH or WHO NEUTRAL and AGAINST recommendations on fluvoxamine or ivermectin (existing on May 21, 2021 when I am making this offer) are:
1. more likely to fit the evidence than recommendations FOR these drugs, or
2. more likely to save more lives than recommending FOR these drugs.
Either method of proof is fine: fit the facts or superior cost-benefit. You have two completely independent ways to win each prize. What could be easier?..."
Oh dear! How did we get on the topic of ivermectin? We were on the topic of whether Weinstein and Heying are cranks when it comes to the vaccine ("yes"). We've got boatloads of data at this point. All strong treatments carry some small risk of harm. Chemo can harm you. Antibiotics can harm you. The only drugs that are completely harmless are things like homeopathy, ie, things that are completely harmless are also completely ineffective. If there's an effective drug or vaccine, it will also produce a few undesirable effects a small portion of the time. That's the cost. It's a bigger cost to let COVID run rampant throughout the world, killing millions of people. The avalanche of data in favor of "benefit" in the cost-benefit calculus of these mRNA vaccines versus COVID is so overwhelming that I just can't have this conversation with you. It's too obvious and therefore too frustrating. I'm sorry. Please believe what you wish and please be well.
"...If there's an effective drug or vaccine, it will also produce a few undesirable effects a small portion of the time. That's the cost. It's a bigger cost to let COVID run rampant throughout the world, killing millions of people..."
I respectfully disagree, my position is summarized by
You'll notice I'm not using blanket statements or patronizing you by stooping to emotional reasoning as you do with these comments: "Oh dear!", "It's too obvious and therefore too frustrating".
This is the comment section of TK News, where the last two posts being discussed are on the topic of ivermectin and censorship of a heterodox scientist who is discussing ivermectin.
I suspect you are not used to people pushing back against your viewpoints?
Spot on. It's much more about Trumps speculation of the origin, and his posture towards China. Since orange man bad, we must take the other side. In a public health emergency that's no way to run a railroad.
Well, if racism is a public health crisis... and blaming the leak on a foreign country's lab workers leads to white supremacists committing racist acts like shooting massage parlor indentured servants... and then...
Alright, let's say that the election of Trump inspired a loss of faith in Democracy. So the solution is to embrace intellectual fascism? That's like trying to cure a hangover by downing a bottle of rat poison.
Using poor Gary Webb as an example was spot on but depressing since the guy put a bullet (or 2 depending on who you believe) in his head after losing his entire life over a story that turned out to be true. This doesn't bode well for either Mr. Taibbi or Mr. Weinstein.
Geez, so John Stewart made the lab leak hypothesis palatable? So what's his medical degree in, the humorous side of slow death by pandemic? In other words, the left wing of America is living inside the same pop culture personality cult that they accused right wingers of living in when they voted for Trump. If Jimmy Kimmel or Jon Stewart says it's true then it's true. Great fucking plan.
Sorry for the disjointed nature of this comment. I wrote it as I was reading the article.
Y'know I spent 1/2 hour watching CNN this morning. In that 1/2 hour I learned that I should be terrified of guns & gun owners because the pandemic turned everyone into sad little bunnies who have cracked under the pressure of being locked down with the comfy chair & the enforced binge watching of Netflix. Poor little bunnies. My heart bleeds for your pain.
They followed that up with a story about the weather & how I should be terrified of heat in summer because it's, like, really hot.
For a group of folk who have hitched their wagon to entities like BLM, who want to bring this society down, are they so completely lacking in self awareness that they don't realize they wouldn't survive 10 minutes without this society's big fat nipple in their mouths?
Today's and yesterday's substack articles were great, and greatly appreciated. This whole situation has a kind of Star Wars plotline (the original,.watchable ones I mean) to it. Every smart person with a platform saying true stuff that pisses off Dark Vader is playing the role of Luke Skywalker. 98% of the media and politicians, and not just in the US, are with the Empire.
Since 1958, the Gallup polling organization has periodically asked Americans how much they trust the federal government to do what is right. In 1958, 73 percent said ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’. Trust hit its high point in 1964, when that figure stood at 77 percent.
Then it began to fall. By 1980, only 27 percent trusted the government to do what is right. That percentage rebounded to the low forties during the Reagan years, then fell to a new low, 19 percent, in 1994. It rebounded again, hitting a short-lived high of 54 percent just after 9/11. Then it plunged again, hitting another new low, 15 percent, in 2011. It has been in the 15- to 20 percent range ever since.
A government that is distrusted by more than 80 percent of the citizens has a bipartisan legitimacy problem.
What you put up is what I want to learn from. But. Has our country changed, or has the media changed; and the availability of media. It appears to me that the media tail/tale is wagging the dog. Lets go back to covid. Why was it OK for big box places to be open, but not our local shops. They just made it a point to scare everybody to f'in to death so of course. And now, the world HAS changed, and to deny that is naive. The challenge is, what f'n world?
Honest question: Is a state's national guard obligated to go to DC? Can't they --- DC --- protect their own backside? Maybe DC isn't ready for prime time.
And regarding your comment about the NGc, are any headed to stop illegal birthing people? Just trying to get used to the new lingo. So confused.
Weinstein is an arrogant, self absorbed imperious fuck with a god complex who should have been required to enter an employee assistance program EAP RATHER THAN BE FIRED.
But the 50 pests at his office door suffer from the same problem.
What’s the diff?
Weinstein had and exercised POWER which the students lacked bec they were students and *not* professors… exacerbated because as a “popular” professor he used the additional power of that popularity to brutalize the 50 … and they responded with full retaliatory force.
The students used the only power available to then and Weinstein should have been smart, humble and gracious enough to SIT DOWN on the hall floor, shut up, and fucking LISTEN to them rather than trying to convert them to his point of view in his typical “popular” elite white supremacist settler colonizing Lord God Of All dominant way.
What a twat.
However, that DOES NOT MEAN he should be censored by YouTube et al and that the information and perspective he brings to the covid issues should not be considered …
Indeed, his views SHOULD be considered … in the precise OPPOSITE way that he FAILED to listen to and consider the views of those 50 students and their legitimate — NOT woke — racial justice issues.
A young Lyndon Johnson was once told that ‘when your mouth is open, you ain’t listenin’ nor learning.’ Someone should tell that to Weinstein … and to the Fascists of Silicon Valley, the deep state, the medical Big Pharna insurance industrial complex, the ruling capitalist elites and the damned CIA loving , Wall Street whiting Democrats.
I watched with considerable fascination actually hours and hours of video from the 2017 Evergreen protests, and no, those students did not have legitimate racial justice issues. They were deeply confused, and were being led around by the nose by people covetous of power.
Bret Weinstein--a man who I'd wager has never done a pull-up or deadlift in his life--"brutalized" a mob of 50 students on his own? Do you have video? I'd like to see that.
First of all, I’m pretty sure he did try to have a discussion with them and the students were the ones who refused to listen. But even if he didn’t, refusing to listen to somebody isn’t “brutalizing” them. If somebody says to me that they were “brutalized,” I’m gonna assume that they were tortured/raped/sodomized or otherwise physically harmed. Anybody who says,”He didn’t listen to me, I was brutalized,” is a pussy who’s never actually been in a fight and had their ass kicked/kicked somebody else’s ass. Brutalized? Gimme a fucking break…
In the whole of Africa, 250 million people were experiencing hunger, which is nearly 20% of the population. Conditions are deteriorating across six countries in East Africa, where 7 million people are at risk of starvation and another 33.8 million face acute food insecurity. At least 12.8 million children are acutely malnourished in the region.
Illegitimacy rate in Africa is 80%! US African Illegitimacy illegitimacy 72"%.
They came here and brought their culture and why Scandinavian countries countries don't want them. They have single payer and don't want it destroyed.
‘when Weinstein's mouth is open, he ain’t listenin’ nor learning.’ Someone should tell that to Weinstein … and to the Fascists of Silicon Valley, the deep state, the medical Big Pharna insurance industrial complex, the ruling capitalist elites and the damned CIA loving , Wall Street whiting Democrats.
Hey! He doesn't belong in your Elitist lineup.
" Weinstein should have been smart, humble and gracious enough to SIT DOWN on the hall floor, shut up, and fucking LISTEN to them rather than trying to convert them to his point of view in his typical “popular” elite white supremacist settler colonizing Lord God Of All dominant way."
" force my resignation based on a meritless accusation!" Did you miss the part where he was thrown out as a White Supremacist? Baring Whites from a campus meeting of any kind is UGLY RACISM.
BTW, other countries have the right to protect their CULTURAL MAJORITY and say NO to uncontrolled and debilitating Diversity:
Switzerland – 90% European.
French 80%, French
Italian - 83% European
Sweden - 82% are Swedish.
Finland - 90% are Finnish
Norway - 86.2% are ethnic Norwegians.
Denmark, 86.9% are Danish
Chinese, 91.6% Han
US, 60% European
Imported poverty makes a big difference. They can afford health care because they pay 70% taxes and don't allow foreign invasion.
So you assume all those countries are WHITE SUPREMACIST?
The Japanese are openly racist, and damn proud of it. In fact, both leaders and voters have become steadily less open to immigration as they have witnessed how it has roiled the U.S. and the UK. As for “cultural diversity,” just rule that out. The few immigrants they tolerate (mostly teachers) must agree to do things *their* way. It’s the non-negotiable condition of being on Japanese soil.
And yet, with its acceptance of numerous different tribes and partial integration of many of them -- admittedly a sometimes difficult and costly process -- the US, by 1945, was the last man standing in a world largely devastated by racism, nationalism, tribalism, and class war. So maybe it was also doing something right, if only occasionally and by accident.
Do you hear yourself. It seems the racists are the people who pit one group against the other like "The White Man is the Devil" and teaching that to kids.
Do you really believe Africa, Central and South America are able to take care of their citizens?
" ....Did you miss the part where he was thrown out as a White Supremacist? Baring Whites from a campus meeting of any kind is UGLY RACISM...."
This didn't happen. Do your homework. I've posted many conversations involving Peter Dorman, Professor of economics at Evergreen State, who, being a faculty member, was privy to the brouhaha and has refuted many of the false claims and inventions that found their way into the Publicsphere. There's plenty of other stuff on the web, easily found, that supports this view too.
I'm an Independent. If you have anything to substantiate your claim, that would throw another light on this. that would be good. The Whole picture is recommended.
Due to its compositional tactility, I really don't think dog shit can accurately be described as "greasy." My experience is that dog shit is either "wet" or "dry," whether it's stored in a sack or not.
Imported poverty makes a big difference? We allow foreign invasion? 82% of Sweden's population is....Swedish? The things one can learn around here.
Uncontrolled and debilitating diversity: Just say no! I like this.
Perhaps if trump is reelected in 2024, Melania can pull a Nancy Reagan and adopt this slogan. Maybe tour grade schools with the message. Think we have a job for her, if she's already planning ahead.
DIVERSE, for a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous through the influx of foreign elements with different cultural backgrounds, possessing the potential to create disharmony within the previous culture.
“These results suggest that rather than ushering in a more tolerant future, the increasing diversity of the nation may instead yield intergroup hostility.”
Far from stray findings, Einstein says, the results are in line with “a huge line of scholarship” suggesting that “greater conflict emerges from greater interracial contact.”
intransitive verb To go or extend in different directions from a common point; branch out.
intransitive verb To depart from an established pattern or norm; deviate.
Example:
Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets;
“Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to d-i-e … Through love of having children (ANCHOR WELFARE), we are going to take over. DIVERSE!
What we see is that White people aren't suppressing anyone. That Kids from Guatemala will be in the same IQ range of 79 no matter how much exposure they have to education and why Latinos have been here longer than Asians but stay in the same income bracket.
Some LOUDNESS for David.
Asia/India $80,000 - $120,000 – IQ 108
White....... $71,922 to $76,057- IQ 102
Hispanic.. $52,382 to $56,113 - IQ 89
Do you still want to blame schools, teachers and White People?
You are engaging in the same racist mindset as the CRT crowd, looking only at race and outcomes. Naw brah. We are all created equal. If you think that means exactly alike, then you really do not understand the Constitution.
Thank you. That was very enlightening. That's why the IQ of whole countries differ. Like the IQ of Guatemala is 79 and the IQ of China is 108. California is trying to teach classes with students having a 30 IQ point difference and spending $13,000,000,000. in special education and left is blaming teachers and white people for the difference in incomes
Biden has banned European migration. They're smarter than him.... can't have that. He insists on only people with low IQs and foists them on the schools.
Thank you. That was an astute observation. Your thought is not racist because you mentions no particular race only Culture which is the heart of the matter.
Actually, yes. Those countries (sans China, natch) are absolutely white supremacists. And they don't give a shit if you call them that. They know it. They like it that way. It's in their constitutions - their language is official, they don't offer birthright citizenship, etc. They don't want to change, and aren't going to. Certainly not because of Twitter.
The irony is... prior to President 45, the whole argument against Republican rule was... "Why can't we be more like the Scandinavian Countries..."
Just because they prefer their own culture which is familiar to them, does not mean they are supremacists. It means they are like Japan, China, South Africa, Australia. All successful countries are Supremacists? Is that how you decide who's a supremacist? They are the most successful places in the world. WHY SHOULD THEY CHANGE? I NEVER heard anyone say, "Why can't we be more like the Scandinavian Countries..." Never heard that till we started WELFARE for everyone and OPEN BORDERS.
You are an idiot! We were better than all those Scandinavian Countries. In the 60's, 80% of my high school in NJ went to college and that included Black children when they still had fathers. You can't blame the people who remember our most successful and harmonious years. The irony? You're right. they have to die before you can finish destroying this country .
The new republic, the new PLAN, bringing all their success to our country so it can be like their home country.
Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets;
“Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to d-i-e … Through love of having children, we are going to take over.
Is this your plan???? Cause that's what's happening.
It just so happens that they live in a cold Climate. Most poverty laden countries are from warm climates where there is no excuse for not harvesting your own food. What do you think the basic problem With Africa is? If you have an answer, it might help the African Americans in this country but they don't seem to change even when moving to another country. BTY Africa has an illegitimacy rate of 80% US African Americans, 72%.
Africa hunger, famine: Facts, FAQs, and how to help ...
In the whole of Africa, 250 million people were experiencing hunger, which is nearly 20% of the population. Conditions are deteriorating across six countries in East Africa, where 7 million people are at risk of starvation and another 33.8 million face acute food insecurity. At least 12.8 million children are acutely malnourished in the region.
"....The irony is... prior to President 45, the whole argument against Republican rule was... "Why can't we be more like the Scandinavian Countries..."
Enough already. I believe the argument in favor of Scandinavia was for its egalitarian social programs and the income equality delivered by it's economic system, not because the place is crawling with honkies.
"....The irony is... prior to President 45, the whole argument against Republican rule was... "Why can't we be more like the Scandinavian Countries..."
Obviously I wrote with a bit of sarcasm - but Norwegians aren't afraid to differentiate "Real Norwegians" from Nouveau Norge. They know what their culture is, and how much they don't want it to change from the outside.
"Culture can be defined as a "systematic, integrated pattern for living"
China is not an European nation but Chinese, are all of the same culture. It was successful countries with the same cultures that I was bringing to your attention. YOU Superimposed Supremacy.
There are many failing single cultured countries and perhaps it is due to the CULTURE itself. It is not our duty to subsidize all the failing countries or transplant them here and hope they grow, cause that's obviously not working. And it has nothing to do with "THE WHITE BOOGIE MAN". The US has created the playing field but it has rules. One of the oldest is SELFSUFFICIENCY.
Massachusetts in 1700 kept out the infirm and disabled who had no security against becoming public charges. The law required ship captains to post bonds for "lame, impotent, or infirm" passengers who were "incapable of maintaining themselves." The bond requirement sought to prevent the new arrival from becoming reliant on public relief. Without a bond from the captain, the vessel had to return the person to his home country.
In the 19th century, before the existence of a federal agency responsible for immigration policies, eastern seaboard states such as New York and Massachusetts enacted state laws that restricted the immigration of aliens deemed likely to become dependent on public institutions such as poor houses. These states also charged steamship companies a “head tax” for each foreign passenger they landed in order to defray the cost of caring for, and sometimes removing, indigent immigrants who ended-up in state-funded facilities. Ellis Island waylaid certain arrivals, including those likely to become public charges, such as unescorted women and children.
This blathering idiocy is exactly what threatens our country at this point. The current “cultural revolution” is the antithesis of freedom and progress, and will be the undoing of all of the work that has come before it. Your erratic and overly emotional, shaming tone speaks volumes about this “movement”. Perhaps there is hope, however, if you are, in fact, a representative of this illiberal takeover, in that you seem to have some instances where you still believe in free speech. But I’m not banking on it. I’m counting on those who still fully believe in the utility of free speech and the incredible dangers of censorship. Matt Taibbi, you are an absolute gem, many thanks to you, sir.
The real villain(s) here is George Bridges the school president, and by extension any school administration official who participated in the decision to fire Weinstein. I hesitate to trot out an Obama injunction, "a teachable moment," but if ever there was a teachable moment, it would seem to be here. At an institution of higher learning no less. Bridges could have diffused the controversy. Bridges should have diffused the controversy. By calling timeout. Take a breather.
And then quickly meeting with both the students and Weinstein separately. And then suggesting that both parties meet together to share their thoughts and positions. A discussion that the administration would be happy to organize. Steps such as these should have at least been attempted. And finally, we're surely not privy to the entirety of the administrative debate or rationales that resulted in Weinsteins firing. Assuming a debate even happened. A public version exists, yes, but this is academia. And the $500,000 settlement doesn't speak volumes, but it says something.
Time to amend. A previous comment of mine. Regarding the Weinstein firing. Weinstein's former colleague, Peter Dorman, has said some interesting things since Professor Ivermectin got himself pink-slipped out in the pacific northwest---fairly or unfairly. I've read a lot about this over the past week or so. I suggest the firing had a bit more complexity to it than the tale that played out in the media. Briefly, that Weinstein's firing owed as much to the usual petty feuds, power machinations, and political intrigue that occur at regular intervals on all college campuses between the college brethren, than it did to any other factor. (see Mary McCarthy's "The Groves of Academe").
That certain "elements," perhaps a "posse" of influential elements, from both the Evergreen faculty, administration and alumni, might have been circling for Weinstein's scalp long before he was actually fired. And that the posse saw their chance during The Great Woke Uprising and made their move. It wasn't necessarily an instance of an untenured professor being fired for speaking his mind---exercising his 1st amendment rights if you must---but an instance of a powerful group who wanted, for any number of reasons, Weinstein gone. From campus. For good. And they certainly had to have weighed all the events taking place on campus and in the media, and surely knew that by actually getting rid of Weinstein at that particular moment would create an even bigger shit storm in all corners---which eventually it certainly did.
In other words, the Evergreen State consensus was that let's get rid of him now, damn the blowback over the 1st amendment stuff, the blowback will blow over, this is America, everybody forgets everything sooner rather than later, and we'll never have an opportunity like this one again to get rid of the son-of-a- bitch, and besides, the alumni donors. Reasons they weren't about to share publicly. I would gather they even factored in the half-mil payout they'd have to shell out later for Weinstein's controversial dismissal, before actually firing him. Perhaps an anonymous donor who also agreed that it was in Evergreen's interest to issue Weinstein his walking papers, came forward, or snuck in the back door, with the half-mil. This stuff happens more often than most people think on America's campuses.
I suspect too that the true masters were moneyed puppeteers, as they always are, the ones who write the checks---wealthy alumni donors. Probably not a lot of them showering money on a school like Evergreen State, but enough of them to matter. And the "posse," the university hierarchy, felt that in the long run appeasing the funders and givers would be the priority. Whatever else this was, it was bad PR for Evergreen State. Important to keep in mind that most colleges today are in a precarious financial state, and have been for the last decade or more---especially small, unorthodox liberal arts schools with Evergreen State's profile.
Didn't F. Scott Fitzgerald once remark, "the Evergreen State alumni---they aren't like you and me?" This is all conjecture of course, which is always an amusing exercise. Of course, if any of this is accurate some would argue it makes the firing even more insidious. And how do we know what Weinstein's motivations were, his motivations for taking the stances and saying the things that he did? We don't. We know what he says, and that is all.
But reading Dorman's comments led me to this conjecture. Through his comments, I feel that Dormand is more than sufficiently believable, that his studied disinterest in the entire affair was genuine, and that he maintains a sincere belief that none of this was good for anybody. And ultimately by his summation of it all: that nobody involved--- Weinstein, Evergreen faculty and administrators, assorted students---chose, or either found, the high road on this one.
Gutterdandy: by the way, I'm receiving your replies to e.pierce. Good to see someone else policing him up, though. I actually find it perversely amusing. PSYCHOTIC TROLL!
I can't speak to the accuracy of your opinion on the college incident and aftermath. But I can speak to how Mr. Weinstein's presentation of COVID data, differing opinions, and openness to following the facts where they lead: he does that in a way that unites people toward the truth, as opposed to how you divide folks by calling him names about something that, likely, you were not a party to.
Why do folks that talk about racial injustice always scream and call people names? You didn't give any facts to back your attack on him, just screamed and called names.
You want to convince us? Be respectful and lay out the facts. If you do that, we'll see it. And it likely will impact our interpretations.
Do you have a quote from Johnson about screaming and name-calling you can apply to yourself?
Your points are important. I just wish you'd provided something to back them up so I could add them to the information I do know. But, you screamed instead of reasoned... please try again.
And I’m sorry, but people lose their right to be respectfully heard out when they form a mob and shout someone down for disagreeing with them. Had they behaved like adults and met with Brett in a calm manner to discuss their grievances, that would be one thing. But they didn’t. They mobbed him, threatened him for not complying, and then literally held the Admins hostage until they agreed to fire him. You don’t capitulate to mobs that use force, and involuntarily detaining people until they meet your demands is FORCE. You also don’t force anyone to not go somewhere, and make no mistake, threatening someone with the possibility of mob “justice” is using force.
The fact that people pretend like these brats have a right to act like brats when this behavior wouldn’t be tolerated coming from any other group is exactly why they continue to behave this way. Now we are in a situation where good journalists with integrity like MT has to use a private platform and certain lines of inquiry are off limits. And this is all because people capitulated to these brats, these brats became older, and now we have brats with influence controlling our institutions.
I don't agree with all you're saying, but at base, you're correct that it would have been the smart move to STFU and listen. What you describe could be expanded to American "higher" education in general. It's a clerisy of entitled creeps.
I totally disagree. Being quiet would have validated their belief that debate is meaningless. Listen, yes, but you don’t stay quiet when people who’ve never met you scream that you’re a racist and demand your resignation.
Part of adhering to this new “movement” means shutting up and never speaking your mind, which is just totally bonkers chilling totalitarianism. I can’t believe someone (who likely fancies themself a leftist) could still comment - after all we’ve seen in the last 4 years - that “Weinstein could have kept his job if he’d have just kept his mouth shut.”
My thought on this for quite a while is that the only way to defeat this pack of phony revolutionaries and spoiled, lazy (usually rich) kids who’ve commandeered media and left political spaces via advancing whining techniques is to call them what they are: the new reactionary right wing. Constantly tarring them as “far left” or “hard socialist” won’t work, because they think it’s really sexy. It’s constantly validating them with ultimately incorrect terminology.
You judgemental defensive moron. I did NOT say that you fucking daft Trumpist clone of the alleged Left.
Your reading comprehension is piss poor.
Listening is totally undervalued in this civilization … and so is reading comprehension. Your terministic screen is showing.
My comment was NOT about Weinstein keeping his job. Fuck his job. He clearly did not want to keep his job as much as he failed to listen and consider viewpoints other than his closed rigid theological belief system … appropriate for a gif on Earth.
RE:Weinstein could have kept his job if he’d have just kept his mouth shut.”
@Thom Prentice (not you, Daren - agreeing with you 100%):
Standard leftist "debate" strategy these days:
Lefty: "Blah-blah-blah! You agree, right?"
Target: "Not exactly. Your suggested strategy hasn't worked lately."
Lefty: "You're an idiot, defensive, brain-dead moron on crack!"
Bullying people into submission only works for a while. Clock's up on that now after 20+ yrs of it. We see what you've created, and we're not having any of it.
"He clearly did not want to keep his job as much as he failed to listen and consider viewpoints other than his closed rigid theological belief system … appropriate for a gif on Earth."
What? How do you know that he didn't listen? How do you know that he didn't consider the others' viewpoints? Be very, very specific about the actual events.
I am not advocating "shutting up and never speaking your mind" in any way. And, the thing about "...could have kept his job if he'd just kept his mouth shut" isn't at all what I'm talking about. Anyone kissing ass to keep their job deserves to get smacked. I'm advocating being smarter about how one pushes back, and understanding timing.
I said this somewhere else last night...it's not a bag race where the winner is determined by a single event. Jumping up and pushing back immediately isn't always the right move, and of course, specific actions depend on a multitude of variables.
I was responding to Mr. Prentice as much as you, but you both seem to literally be advocating for the “words are violence” and “silence is deafening (but you can only publicly agree with me or we’re back to violence)” part of this regressive movement, which I radically disagree with. (Dislike Weinstein if you like, but he was deeply wronged in that Evergreen situation, and I’d call the spoiled, lazy and angry zoomlinneals the actual new “clerisy” in that situation and all others.)
There’s nothing left (or “left”) of this New Left worth salvaging.
I've noticed that the deployment of the word "clerisy" has become somewhat fashionable on these boards. Used somewhat indiscriminately, primarily to describe a group of people that the commenter has taken issue with or otherwise harbors a deep antipathy towards.
The definition of "clerisy: ".....a distinct class of learned or literary people...."
May seem harmless, but throughout history it has been a hallmark of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in times of unrest to identify the members of the "clerisy," accuse them of crimes against the state---thought crimes---and subtly turn them into scapegoats for the ills that beset the state.
Show trials were produced, sentences handed out, exile or execution quickly followed. Stalin turned it into an art form. "Words of violence" can often be very subtle.
Wow. I was never advocating that, and I pretty much agree with everything else you said. I do think Weinstein was/is a dork, and I don't like or dislike him; he simply is a guy trying to do what he believes. I also think he was wildly wronged in the university and Youtube issues.
If I was advocating for anything (I don't think I was actively advocating, just suggesting strategy and tactics), it would be to approach the thing in a smarter fashion. His actions didn't and don't seem to be working out for him in anything, and no amount of moral indignation and shouting is going to get him anything.
I could never agree with that sort of rhetoric towards anyone. Using childish tactics to respond to childish tactics won’t create an adult situation. (And answering anger politics with anger politics is what got us into this mess. See: Hate, Inc.)
If anyone here hasn’t seen or listened to it, this wonderful discussion between the brilliant black conservative Glenn Loury and the brilliant black democratic socialist Cornel West is heartening: here are two passionate, fiery, stubbornly opinionated and wildly educated men treating each other as metaphorical and literal brothers, while waxing deeply philosophical on spirituality, politics, Russian literature, John Coltrane and the black American spirit. It’s wonderful and moving and I feel like the way out of our stupid morass is in here somewhere: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CXJHXHOH844
We need more of this: caring and compassionate - and ideologically opposed - adults trying to find common ground. (I’d pay good money for a regular West-Loury show.)
I agree with Matt. Watch the videos of Bret's encounter with those"students". They were not interested in "being heard", they were pumped up to smack down a faculty member based on ignorance and misinformation about what the issue actually was. I've been in such gatherings myself and it is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of mob behavior - headless and thus brainless, moved by emotion that whipsaws through impressionable children and achieves nothing useful, ever.
The basic framework of bourgeois institutions is one of state power, and this includes at least accredited and credentialed institutions like universities and colleges. Hence the focus of the contending parties at Evergreen and in similar confrontations on power, in this case through shouting down and later terrorizing the opposition. This response to oppression is to become the oppressor. Obviously, you will not get rid of oppression in this way, even if you ''win''.
I suggest people try to seek out different, non-coercive modes of organization and action. I am pretty sure you won't find them in corporations and other state institutions, although you may have to sneak through their corridors for awhile to survive. Ultimately, you do have the power to do something different.
I like that. I like that a lot. It gets much closer to what I'm trying to say than anything I've said. So much of what we're yakking about is just more noise, masquerading as thoughtfulness and intelligence. The story is much bigger than the stories we're presented. While all of it does not take the form of what current hipdom considers a hot take, it all feels like a hot take to me. We'll know what happened in several years, and all prestidigitation disguised as news...is noise.
Sure, that's what some folks think is honorable, and maybe it is, but I'd rather not go down. Sometimes, often in fact, that means taking a short term hit. Weinstein was dumb on multiple counts. His underlying situation is admirable, but he's a dumbshit. He could've played this a dozen ways from Sunday and come out on the right side of it. As it is, he's going down swinging, which is a fools errand.
In your focus on “strategy,” you appear to embrace the students’ reduction of the situation to power plays. In a battle for power for power’s sake, truth, fairness, due process, are kicked to the curb. They have no value, only power has value. Weinstein attempted to make this point to Congress. I have generally heard strategy touted as an excuse for the abandonment of principles. What’s the goal here? To keep one’s job? At what cost? What perplexes me most about these altercations is to hear the advocates of censorship and bullying described regularly and elsewhere, even in a lot of alternative media, as “progressive” and even “left.” This, and the embrace by so-called progressives of the CIA, FBI and NSA is reminiscent of John Birchers in the 50’s. These are right-wing perspectives and tactics. As Orwell warned, one of the places we should start if we value democracy is to call things by their proper names.
Terms like 'Left' and 'Right' have been emptied of meaning, as I've complained elsewhere. One result of this process seems to be that the historical principles of the Left cannot be named and thus cannot be discussed or transmitted. Hence the goddess TINA rules.
Well, you're kinda all over the place with this one. There's a bit of cross connected straw man morphed into philosophical meandering. Strategy can easily be described as abandonment of principle, except when it's not and one understand time and it's benefits.
Not that I want to go all in on this, but what the heck... I've spent a few years in China, a lot of it in rural areas studying the tactics of He Long and his army in their retreat through Yesanguan and Dacun, talking to the locals, and working to understand strategies I'm not familiar with. In short, I think about this stuff in entirely different ways than I did years ago. And no, I'm not in thrall to the Commies or any ideological component of their fight, but I learned some things I'd not considered because I'd not been exposed to them.
All the stuff you said...sure. It all makes sense a lot of the time, maybe all the time, until it doesn't because someone is not playing the game by the rules you imagine apply. If I am unprincipled, OK, sure, but it's the same thing. You imagine a limited number, or even a single, principle applies, except it/they don't.
Sorry for sounding obtuse, but it's a big world and the debate is limited only by someone's perceptions. I propose perceptions here are short, inaccurate, or something worse.
I guess I didn't see a rope around his neck when it was unfolding; he should have recognized he was at a supreme disadvantage, however unjust his situation was, and it certainly was. He sure has one on his neck now, seriously constraining or eliminating options. Options are survival; if you can find and maintain them, probabilities shift in your favor.
There's no knowing how shit will play out, but playing for time can avert a lot of negative possibilities.
Yes, you have to stand up to a bully. Letting the most silly and destructive ideas float into the forefront of mainstream thought unchallenged is indeed one of the primary things that’s plagued us.
Fighting a bully by bullying them in return just goes nowhere, which is an important distinction I think.
Matt it was not about debate. It was about listening. He didn’t. He was graceless feckless and an unwiped asshole. Yet his views on Covid should not be censored.
Matt, this is a nonstarter and asks the question of whether you can walk and chew gum at the same time?
Well, I understand, but IF I was that situation, which I never would be, I would have been thinking strategically. You're still a youngster, and you imagine to the best response in all situations is to immediately stand up and push back is the right thing to do, which it is, but pushing back when all tactical advantage is not in your favor...is really dumb.
I love you because you (figuratively and sometimes literally) yell at the injustices and stupidities of the world in ways that cherish, but your total lack of a strategy reveals you got a lot to learn. It may be that the fact your paycheck is directly tied to your ability to get up and yell at first blush has clouded your judgment.
Winning the race doesn't mean you lead every lap. It might, but it often means you wait for someone to burn up, or reveal a weakness, or....oh fuck it...I'm not good at the allegories. I still believe the smart move would be to STFU, keep your powder dry, and wait for the mopes to stumble. Then, I'd be up their ass with a flamethrower.
And from what little I've seen and know about the situation, those morons would have presented about a million opportunities to push it all back up their ass until their eyes popped.
Looking back on it now, in the context of cancel culture, woke politics and ever creeping critical theory into the mainstream, perhaps it seems obvious that Bret was faced with a hopeless situation at Evergreen. These forces had not gained the prominence they have today when Evergreen broke down though; for many, hearing about the fiasco Bret and Heather went through was an alarm bell that people could hardly believe was ringing. I'd wager the instinct of most liberal leaning people at that time would be to try to explain perspectives in a civilized manner, and, perhaps foolishly, expect the same courtesy in return.
Yeah, it's all just comments section meandering. Which made me think more about conflict....
One's gotta be really careful nowadays, in our new world of everyone packing and thousands of youngsters highly skilled in MMA...where some unassuming looking kid can take down someone outweighing then by a hundred pounds and punch their lights out. I've seen it happen. Strategy should consider that the other side may be that 134 pounder that can take you down, and your principles don't mean shit.
It ain't a bag race. It's not 1000 meter sprint. It's not even a marathon. This shit we're talking about, you might run til you die.
How 'bout No. Geeesh. Maybe they're just confused and angry 19-year olds, of the Evergreen State variety, and in the good professor saw a guy who was asking for it one way or another. A little ideological skirmish between pupil and professor is what they built the academy for.
The students? Obnoxious as hell, yes, but giv'em a little space and in four years they'll be heading off to do PR for Apple and running the coffee shops of Portland. You make it sound as though they're an unruly gagggle of uninvited visigoths, ready to give America the business end of a three-ball flail. "Their currency is raw power and their only goal domination." No, unintelligible critical theory is their currency and their goal is to graduate without suffering a nervous breakdown.
"They are not themselves capable, or willing to listen." You just described 95% of America.
"They have zero respect for themselves and the society in which they live, and hence have no respect for us, our shared history, and institutions."
I really think what you're saying here is that YOU have zero respect for THEM. And the society in which they live? Perhaps they see it as a society which could use a drastic overhaul of sorts, and that overhaul will be noisy, messy, and there will be some hurt feelings involved---and being excitable 19-year olds, full of books and brimstone, they can be expected to go about this project in a decidedly half-ass manner.
The last sentence is a chicken dinner winner...."no respect for us, our shared history, and institutions." I'm on to your tells---US. Who be us? Probably not any us's I know, I imagine. But I must say, at first reading, the sonorous, soporific cadence of your prose style ingeniously masks a sort of cultural ruthlessness at work. I'm impressed.
I just reread this...it's great. Methinks you're intimately familiar with the intersection of youth, erudition, administrative incompetence, contrapuntal finagling, and the finer points of contemporary university life. My admiration and condolences to you...
How can one be classified as a "troll" on a site where a majority of commenters are trolls themselves? Tk is a cesspool of trolls. You're near the top of the list. I recall a few weeks ago when a first time commenter here at TK, who claimed he was European, in a thread about Ivermectin, was flabbergasted at the abject inaccuracy of most of the comments on the subject at hand. He picked up on it in five minutes. He wondered if it was a case of trollery, laziness, stupidity, propaganda, or merely an attitude of "can't be bothered." But then he's European. A continent of known "radical extremists on the far left." Gaslighter indeed.
But I gots me one thing going that the other trolls here don't have workin' for them: "Psychotic" troll. Unbalanced. Loose cannon. Sworn opponent of propagandists everywhere. A virtuous cynic. Like Lloyd Blankfein and Savonarola, I'm doing god's work, with a touch of "old scratch" thrown in. See you in the murky depths...
It's mildly amazing there even needs to be a counterpoint to this sordid mess. The failure of Evergreen administration, and the fact that universities nationwide didn't coalesce into some visible and apparent condemnation of the students and support for Weinstein only increases my feeling that the current university environment is a swamp.
You are welcome. Yep, it must be very eerie to be a student these days, constantly walking around on eggshells lest you upset some random classmate (or prof!). That has to be a very bad thing.
Thanks, it's useful to read. At some short point I have to be amazed there even needs to be a counterpoint. The failure of Evergreen administration from the Prez on down approaches criminality, and the fact that universities across the country haven't coalesced to provide visible and apparent support for Weinstein and condemnation for the bat wielding morons only deepens my feeling that the current university environment is a swamp of stupidity. That the entire mess seems to be getting adjudicated on Twitter, MSM/Fox/MSNBC, and in editorial comments sections confirms (to me anyway) the vapidity of the entire mess.
It may be that Weinstein really is a lovely albeit hapless dupe of powers vastly beyond his own. But, he didn't seem to play this in the manner I would imagine someone of his erudition would. It was a fumbling clusterfuck from the beginning and we're apparently nowhere near the end of it, although I can just as easily imagine this sliding out of the zeitgeist because the ZG requires constant feeding and leftovers isn't what gets clicks.
Hate, Inc. and it's premise could be applied to all of this, no?
It is a clerestory of entitled tenured corporate and billionaire funded priests .Where are all the Marxist professors in the business schools of Harvard, Yale , Chicago, Stanford Princeton utexas ucla etc?
He “brutalized” the 50 students? Jesus dude. You’re not living in reality. He might be a little arrogant but beyond that, the idea that he had “power” over them dilutes the meaning of the word to be meaningless.
Wake up, people. There is a divide more fundament than left vs. right. That divide is authoritarian vs. freedom. A free and truly diverse society can coexist only as long as we allow everyone to say and do as they please, as long as they are not hurting others. And fantasy hurts, including mean words, don't count.
Seizing power may feel expedient, or even justified, when those in charge share your ideology, but to be blunt, fuck you. If you are not happy with the degree of authority when your party or tribe is out, then you are not morally entitled to wish for that same power--and the chance to be in control, and use it on others.
People fantasize about national schisms and even secession, usually into liberal and/or conservative countries. I would much rather see us divide into the tolerant and puritan, and then watch the puritans eat themselves.
I agree with all of your points except the premise that fascists can be logically negotiated with.
They're into force, in all things.
Yelling people down, cancelling accounts so that their adversaries can rebut, and when push comes to shove -torching things and causing mass disruption.
Personally, I see them as lackeys for the Intel goons who are maintaining their owners' grip on everything.
*that should read "CAN'T rebut"
As in, "I'd like to go back and edit that but I.... can't."
How dumb do you have to be to still rate yourself “on the spectrum” of left-v-right?
Wealth/income inequality is so large that it’s literally THE ONLY issue in the US right now. Everything else is a distraction, so freedom-v-authoritarianism breaks along class interest as well. Authoritarianism helps protect you from mob justice.
Tell us: how does wealth inequality correlate to inequality in other human characteristics?
And based on history, how does our present material inequality compare to other eras and societies in the past? How does the US and the world look in terms of percent living with little or no income or wealth, and in terms of their material well being? Hint: compare the standard of living of the bottom 10% in the US now to the median family of 100 years ago? Ask those people which condition they would prefer.
Class envy might be useful political rhetoric, but like most rhetoric is largely BS.
That’s your thesis, so don’t ask me to prove it for you. :D
It sounds to me more like your frustration has been co-opted to challenge literally anything but real power centers in the US. Good luck with your perpetual defeat.
It’s so much worse than that though. It’s a way to roll arbitrary fights INTO the culture war. What they essentially said was, “yeah, things suck but I’m going to vote for whichever side looks more purple.” Henceforth, whichever group panders to the purple group will win, so long as it’s one of the controlled opposition parties.
Instead, ask your husband to help you look up ad hominem.
Yeah, but it’s really more of a self-own- unless it’s used by someone actually wealthy like a billionaire. If you work at a PR firm and you craft a phrase like “class envy” it’s a little like saying, “at least I only suck rich dick.”
SHUT IT
Do tell how it does this.
That study has been soundly criticized. I don't have it at my fingertips, but it's junk.
STFU
GO AHEAD AND JUMP
Only stupid people adhere to tribalism when they can’t eat, they have no homes, and no prospects. I don’t care if the underpass I have to sleep under is painted blue or red.
The blue ones have free needles.
Thanks for explaining the parameters of the divide.
In early America, if the tolerant and puritan had divided themselves, and the puritan devoured themselves, there would now be no America.
The Dark Horse Podcast is one of the only "media" outlets that has kept me sane during this pandemic. They are rational, smart as hell, and willing to let the evidence and data guide their choices - something increasingly difficult to find these days.
Totally agree!
I especially like the different personalities. Heather is awesome. It's like they give each other space.
The podcast Trish Wood Is Critical, though Canada-focused, has also been a great source for expanding discussion on this subject
I'm a regular listener to the Dark Horse podcast and I want to add a couple of things to Bret's answer about the Covid vaccines.
They are ALWAYS circumspect, and while they have cautioned about the newness of the vaccines, they've certainly never condemned them. In fact, they have specifically mentioned that their parents have all been vaccinated.
For what it's worth, I never miss a podcast and I got vaccinated. And I felt better about it for having listened to Bret and Heather. I knew they weren't blindly pushing a political agenda like our pols and media.
My feelings exactly. They admitted that information on the MRNA vaccines was pretty good in terms of effectiveness. They said 95% was, "pretty good." I got the Moderna vaccine because I knew that was in my best interest. Everybody else is going to do the same thing. What Bret and Heather are arguing, absolutely heroically, is that there is unbelievable danger in a uniform narrative when there hasn't been longitudinal research to see the effects, and there can't be. I would add, in a world that is just scratched the surface on vaccinations nothing should be off the table.
Well, they said that, but they also said as a strategy, vaccines, having had CoV 19 and the use of therapeutics, combined is a great way to accomplish herd immunity. Why would you get the vaccine if you had already had the virus? No, don't tell me it's because of the variants.
It's up in the air What one must do, and that is a defensible position. The problem with their position, as well as with getting vaccinated after COVID-19, is nobody knows what the future holds. I have friends who were infected with COVID-19 and received vaccines. That is the government's recommendation of what to do regardless of what Bret and Heather want to say. It is also recommended by Consumer Reports. You can take that advice or you can take Bret and Heather's advice, and we don't know what is correct. Bret and Heather are speculating anyway. Their speculation might have more merit than the average person, and Lord knows they think it does. It is premature to draw any substantial conclusion on the right approach.
Yea, I'm not taking medical advise from Consumer Reports. As for the government / Fauci / CDC, they haven't given my ANY reason to believe much of what the say isn't tied to the teachers unions. Think about the facts that it was the teachers unions giving the CDC talking points. Remember, all these so called experts are political appointees. They no who butters their bread.
Yeah that's it, blame the"teachers union" for public policy at the highest levels. They have so much control over public policy much more than Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, all the Wall Street hedge fund managers that want things a particular way, got to blame the teachers union, nevermind there a multiple teachers unions. It couldn't be lobbying by Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna, Wall Street hedge funds ... nah, got to blame the teachers unions. Fauci us a political employee 40 years over in multiple cabinets. Let's ignore a perfectly good discussion of the job he's doing and blame the teachers unions.
Absolutely! They have never said anyone shouldn't get the vaccine, just been critical of anyone who professes to know that there are not and cannot be any unknown long-term effects of the vaccine. His guests (Malone and Kirsch) in one of the more recent ones maybe went a little further in criticism, talking about the spike in VAERS and relying on anecdotal evidence, but even that wasn't a straight-up "the vaccine is unsafe", and in fact they had both gotten Moderna!
TAKE YOUR MEDS
This story is a drum that needs to be beat all day everyday.
We’ve all been lied to and this man is trying like hell to tell us the truth, and what does he get? Censored
When in the history of civilization has censorship ever been the cause of the good side?
Great comment 👍
It’s not him I’m worried about. It’s the rest of us that depend on the market place of ideas being open, not censored. Much thanks to Taibbi (and Greenwald) for fighting for us.
Great article. I disagree on one point. Alex Jones' right to free speech is just as important as Bret Weinstein's, because yours and MINE could be viewed as lacking the quality for Weinstein's and being more akin to Jones' by certain "tribally blind" purveyors of censorship, blacklisting and persecution. "I disagree with what you say, but I will fight to the death to defend your right to say it" applies even more to Alex Jones than to Weinstein.
Yup, Alex Jones is the 21st century version of the Skokie Nazis (although whatever other idiocy rattles in his brain, Jones is not an anti-Semite).
So I said the booting of Jones without due process was a negative development for a variety of reasons, but Jones in my mind had clearly repeatedly committed libel, so the issues there were a lot different. All the same, you don’t start censoring just because the courts are slow.
Fair enough.m
So cool of you to respond to our comments. Bravo!
Only thing I would say is that you live in a world a journalistic norms and standards, legal and otherwise, whereas my thoughts about free speech come from the Wild West of actual speech by non-professionals like myself, mainly on social media, where speech should always be free unless it is a direct call to violence.
For instance, you should be able to yell fire in a crowded movie theater, as long as you believe it is actually on fire. Not sure about Jones, but Trump Supporters do believe the “theater” is on fire.
That justifies their yelling. So to me it’s protected speech. And those hurt by it can certainly seek legal recourse. But suppression of speak, especially when it is engendered by genuine belief, should be the very last option.
SHUT IT AND TAKE THE MEDS
Glenn Greenwald's article today said, "I personally agree with the rationale cited in both cases: it becomes dangerous when defamation claims are used to punish or otherwise forbid the expression of political opinion." Perhaps we can set up a debate between you and Glenn. Clearly what he is defending would extend to Alex Jones.
Let's have a battle royale debate GREENWALD v. TAIBBI.
It would be awesome!
It would be interesting to get conspiracy theorists in court for libel, although that is extraordinarily difficult in the US. David Irving, the Holocaust denier historian did get nailed in the UK, but the laws there are significantly different.
I would have supported Nazis marching in Skokie. And I support Jones having a platform online. Neither would I watch.
Me too... because letting people say whatever, whenever creates the very opportunity to say the RIGHT thing in defiance of such bullshit and to counter that bullshit properly.
It's not a one-way street... to ban anything today, it opens the door to ban anything else tomorrow.
Precisely. Free speech is there or isn't there. It's never conditional.
I wonder how history will treat Trump? As a man, incompetent narcissistic and an ignoramus: there or there about I think . As President, as the office holder, will his endless complaining about establishment conspiracies, corruption and lies be vindicated? I think yes. I also suspect the establishment will be judged to be the greater threat to the American experiment.
There will be two histories written. One will be "official" the other will be the "Howard Zinn" version. The truth will never be widely disseminated.
He was a man of relatively limited knowledge, but good political instinct. He was intellectually lazy, but capable of common sense approaches to problem solving. His narcissism both allowed him to pursue the Presidency, but also kept him from becoming a trusted President.
The two histories that will be written will be
1) He was an evil Hitler who hated minorities and women and caused 6 billion people to die of Covid.
or
2) He was the greatest patriot in the history of the USA, who owned the libs and exposed how Democrats abused everyone and everything, just like QAnon says.
The fact is that the political system in the USA (the elected officials, their party apparati, their spin-controllers in the media) debased itself precisely because an outsider took office. They did not know how to handle the fact that someone broke the code of democracy and was able to win votes without the machine helping. They are still trying to do it - even with him out of office - because they know that it is now possible, and someone smarter and more competent (and more Machiavellian) than Trump may be next.
Bravo- well done. Presidencies are often defined in a single sentence. Obama, black guy. W, 911 and WMD. Clinton, deregulation and blow jobs. HW Bush, wimp. Reagan, Cold War. Carter, malaise. Ford, fell down the stairs. Nixon, China and Watergate.
Trump, fake news, he was right.
This is an interesting exercise.
I closed my eyes for a phrase for each and here what is what immediately came to my mind:
Nixon-EPA; Ford- ended VN war; Reagan-Patco; Carter-Dept. of Energy; HW Bush- Gulf War ; Clinton-NAFTA, TANF; W, 911 and Katrina; Obama-Nobel Prize; Trump, outsider.
I have been a gov't documents librarian so the need to move books around when a new agency is created stays with me
IMO, even the GloboCaps don’t trot out Obama’s Nobel Prize as an argument anymore, it was about as valid as Hunter Biden’s new status in the art world.......
Wait til the revelation hits that he uses the entrails of dead crackwhores to paint.
I knew it!
lol!!!
A Hopkins man!
You are a fan of government, for myself, not so much. Otherwise I liked your list, it’s clearly more constructive than mine. One quibble, Reagan’ being on watch for defeat of communism might be more important than the air traffic controllers strike/firing.
I agree w/you if I think about it for RR but those were my first impressions (union background). I think EPA and DOEnergy were really because I had to make room (on library shelving). I mean think about it from a librarian's POV---the gov't added whole new depts. and the documents are alphabetized by dept. name. Don't even get me started on how exhausting it was when HEW broke up. (I know the woeful tales of reorganizing the documents library when a president signs a new dept. into being are really small beans).
No that’s fantastic. Very enjoyable
“Tear down this wall” is pretty quotable.
I'm going to do this exercise, too.
Trump: orange man bad/racist. Obama: Ellen, drones. W: 9/11, mass spying. Clinton: blowjobs, NAFTA, Nazi crime bill. HW: "Read my lips." Cheney shot a dude in the face.
Ha that IS fun
Trump-Win win win win vs. racistfascistevangelicalwelldonesteak
Obama-beer summit, you didn’t build that
Dubya-9/11, WMD
Clinton-BJ, McDonalds
Bush-New World Order, puked on Japanese PM
Reagan - Alzheimer Hollywood Guy; tear down this wall
Carter - Peanut Farmer; malaise
Ford - Whoops!
Nixon - Crook
LBJ - Used slurs and cusswords on the toilet
JFK - blown away, what else do I have to say?
Very good. Why Ellen?
He danced on Ellen... remember?
It was a thing.
He was a silly joke. A crackpot with no discernable positive traits, save a knack for self-promotion. Policywise, he was a generic Republican who surrounded himself with generic Republicans and ex Goldman Sacks execs (despite pretending to be an outsider) whose signature legislation was a massive giveaway to the wealthy (especially himself. and this after "this tax reform won't be good for me, believe me") and who ended in utter disgrace after lousy handling of the pandemic, being so pathetic and delusional that he couldn't face up to losing an election and retreated instead into conspiracy bullshit, and whose followers attempted to kill our legislature due to being so stupid they believed his pathetic delusions. That's it. That is Trump. In what reality are his endless complaints about conspiracies vindicated? He came off not as prophetic or possessing any special knowledge, but rather as pitiful. Completely surrounded by a bubble of sycophants who would tell him obvious fantasies that he was too dumb to see through.
Yep & Obama was a well spoken urbane con man who rose up at a time of national desperation, promising oodles of justice for "da little guy" in that preacherly cadence that has bamboozled American rubes since America started shitting out rubes. Once in office he quickly realized who was buttering his bread so he got down on his knees & took a big fat banker cock in his mouth & began sucking, not letting up for 8 long hard years. This attention to semenic details led to him living on Cape Cod & writing 3 memoirs as if anyone sane would care to read 3 books about his fucking life. As a side job to his main blow job, he ushered the healthcare challenged into an already bloated & corrupt private insurance system & then bragged about it like it was an accomplishment. Liberals everywhere, especially upscale white liberals, worship him like he was a deity and dwell on every one of his rhetoric laden platitudes like they were aromatic farts out of God's asshole.
HAHAHA
Good stuff.
All of it true, to boot. God, but people are conned so easily.
Spiderbaby made some good points, but I can't like it as too crude so I'll like your response.
Here's the censored version:
Yep & Obama was a well spoken urbane man who rose up at a time of national desperation, promising oodles of justice for men, women & farm animals everywhere in that preacherly cadence that has enthralled Americans since America collectively learned how to spell the word "enthralled." Once in office he quickly realized he was God's right hand on Earth so he got down on his knees & prayed to the Lord Jesus, not letting up once for 8 long years. This attention to seminary detail led to him living on Cape Cod, writing 3 exceptionally wonderful memoirs & earning the honors & respect of those fun loving cut ups in the National Security State. President O-Ain't He Sweet also had many side jobs including ushering at a local movie theater for the blind, offering to hand clean all the lead out of Flint's water & successfully helping stem a Middle Eastern terrorist population explosion by allowing his VP, Joe Biden, to drone on & on until the offending scofflaws all just died of boredom, peacefully hugging their Korans & prayer mats. Liberals everywhere, especially upscale bunny loving squirrel hugging liberals, think he was the presidential equivalent of chocolate ice cream smothered in whipped cream & sprinkles. Stephen Colbert, that great philosopher of comedic fluff & positivity once offered to "drink him in" in an entirely non sexual & platonic way.
Same here....
Thanks so much for this --- seriously, hilarious! But don't forget, per his hand-picked veep and our now pres --- he is a clean black guy. So cogent; but only if spewed by an old white Democratic male.
Too hard to keep track anymore. Think I will just speak my mind. Could be stormy times ahead. Smiling emoji.
Why the immediate assumption that a critique of trump is also partisan support for obama? And his policies? Do tell.
Why did you assume I assumed anything? I could have done the same thing with Bush The Addled or Billy Bob Kiddie Diddler Clinton. Obama is just proof that, in America, political shitheads come in many colors.
And, of course, liberals worship him like a deity. Mostly white liberals. White liberals who never get anywhere near black people. Especially black people like George Floyd. So that makes the Obama cult extra special funny. To me. Maybe not to you. Don't care.
By the way Mr. Larouche, by using "do tell" at the end of your comment you instantly forced me to visualize you as resembling Dr. Evil from Austin Powers, pinky pressed against your lower lip as you typed. So thanks for the morning giggle. For me. Maybe not for you. Don't care.
Oh I agree that whatever his beliefs were before, the instant he was in office Obama compromised them. And while i wouldn't use quite the same language, I can't help but also agree that his administration's abject surrender to investment banks was completely absurd. And yes, the ACA is right wing bullshit, but it is at least better than what we had before before. I would point out that that even though it is right wing bullshit, the Republicans still fought it tooth and nail. And they still had lower to go as Trump showed us.
Ha ha Hallelujah
I find it odd that people continue to call someone a "silly joke" and other things about his lack of competence.....The guy won the nomination and then won the election. He also had a whole lotta people working overtime to try to sabotage him. Yes, he's a piece of shit, but he certainly isn't the fucking ignoramus everyone thinks or that he has been made out to be.
Russiagate
"He was a man of relatively limited knowledge, but good political instinct. He was intellectually lazy, but capable of common sense approaches to problem solving. His narcissism both allowed him to pursue the Presidency, but also kept him from becoming a trusted President."
I mean, one can't be any fairer than that. Well said, Pub.
Do we have to make this about Trump
A G A I N ?
OK Trump himself as an individual, you feel exhausted, I sympathize.
Where do you plan to deposit his 75 million voters? They are a supreme inconvenience: so stupid so uneducated so wrong so white. So what? How do you shelve them?
My problem is the crowding out discussion of the topic at hand. I don't think there's any shortage of opportunity to discuss Trump while there is an acute shortage of spaces where we are allow to talk about the weirdnesses relating to the pandemic.
The problem is that the whole internet censorship debate begins and ends with "Factchecking Trump". Without the craziness of the left in seeking fault with everything the man did, we wouldn't be in this quandary.
It's not this forum that brings everything to Trump, it's that the problems that we face are all because of the political machine's reaction to the man. *They* still can't let him go. He's still banned on the platforms, he's still talked about on the cable stations, he's still being investigated by Democrat Attys. Gen.
Every action by a cop is his fault. Even the border crossings *this* year are his fault, if you believe Psaki (which hopefully nobody does).
Thanks for making that clear--you are right.
Yes please.
Well said and fair enough.
If I wasn't mad at MLB for moving the All-Star game I would be watching baseball but this is pretty interesting.
"The Trump election inspired a loss of faith in democracy."
Still struggling with this. I take as a given that both parties cheat in elections. Of course they do. But i think for the most part (excepting, say, hanging chaddery) that the effect is negligible, and advantages probably roughly cancel each other out. I still believe that both Donald Trump and Joe Biden won legitimately.
I bang on about this too much. But Donald Trump apparently won his primary fair and square. Does anyone really think the Republican establishment preferred him over, say, Jeb! the Democratic primary was rigged af. Superdelegates, money, looting state parties, DNC voodoo, don't even know where to start. And this is the party whining about loss of faith in democracy? Give me a fucking break.
Democrats are natural born cheaters. They are afforded this by their purported virtue.
I've only lived in blue states as a voting adult (4 or them so far), so i can't really speak for red ones. The Democratic parties and governments in those states are just so dirty and corrupt. I'm sure that, say, Texas and Florida are just as bad though.
All of the parties dirty little fuckers, this isn't about the party leadership per se, this is about the people that support them.
The ones that they all really work for are the problem.
I simply disagree. The left is dominated by entitled, elitist pricks and that include most of the party on the coasts in particular.
I don't disagree at all with your statement(s). I just think both sides are corrupted by their owners. And probably toast the owners with each other at the pub after all their hard work... maintaining the circus with which to distract us.
The truth of it is that certain people on both sides cheat as much as they can get away with it, every election, to the point that we must currently accept it as an invisible part of the process. So I would say to Trump supporters, "You lost", but what that means is that the other side cheated better than you did.
Every institution in this country that is broken remains so because it suits certain people in power to have it that way. That is why our medical system, our immigration system, our election system, our disaster response, etc. remain the way they are. If people in power really wanted to fix those things, they wouldn't remain broken. They are able to act quite quickly and firmly when the powers-that-be are actually interested in a change.
Hi Matt, I just subscribed to this Substack because of your coverage of Bret and the censorship issue. This, and the lack of algorithmic transparency in how we get our information suggested to us, cannot be allowed to stand in a free society. If we the people aren't trusted to make sense for ourselves, we won't have democracy much longer; certainly not one worth the name.
Me also Ben. Great coverage Matt, thank you. Bret and Heather have a combination of reason, insight, vision and courage that is so desperately needed right now. They ground they’re arguments in the available evidence, gather the stats but can also can discern the pattern within the pattern. No coincidence that their skills are being thwarted by the powerful. The censored idea is not necessarily the truthful one, but in this case the attempt at silencing them speaks volumes. If intelligent reasoned scientist are threatening the powerful, then to me this is all the more reason to listen to the very thing they don’t want us to hear.
Also, I think it might be a good idea for those who have the means to subscribe to Brett through Patreon, I think he is a voice of many of us, "they" came for him and in one way or another are making his life financially hard - we've got to make sure "they" don't get him.
Thanks Matt. A critical issue well presented. Perhaps in a future article you might examine this purported truth: “The Trump election inspired a loss of faith in democracy.”
Well, among some. I couldn’t stand Trump but said from the start his election was weirdly a good sign that voters still mattered.
I thought the same way about Obama‘s election. Trump following Obama furthered my belief that America was truly a democracy.
The elite sure do not like actual democracy. Idiot Trump supporters come with democracy.
Meanwhile, idiot Biden supporters are busy bringing on a different form of government.
Oh stop it. Biden is a bland centrist politician, whose primary distinguishing characteristic is tireless support for credit card companies. His supporters are basically Democrats, a large, big tent party that is controlled by its centrist corporate wing. Neither he nor his party are bringing in any "different form of government". Unlike, say, Republicans who wholeheartedly support the violent overthrow of America and the installation of a joke of a reality show host as dictator for life. Take your right wing nutjob bullshit back to Breitbart.
Liberal here who never voted for Trump. Biden may have been a bland centrist at one point; today he is compromised both physically and ethically. Democrats are lined up in support of HR1, guaranteed to bring one-party rule to the USA for a hundred years. They're lined up in favor of discrimination against Jews, whites, anyone who fails to demonstrate sufficient zeal in the party's march toward authoritarianism. The party as a whole supports censorship and denial of due process based on tribal characteristics.
That defines a different form of government from the liberal Western democracies arising from the Enlightenment. I was a liberal Democrat from 1960 to 2009 (yes. I'm older than dirt). I have no party today.
As an aside, it's astonishing how much abuse and 'Anti-Semitism' so-called Jews are will to take from Democrats. I have had this discussion with my Jewish husband and he insists most Jews are not Jewish 'religiously' as they are atheists today.
You've self-identified elsewhere in these threads as having once worked with an assortment of spooks, military guys, government officials, etc., in some capacity. If this is true, I would like to think from your experiences you come to TK with a unique perspective not shared by most here. That's a pretty dire forecast above. And it's rather broad in its generalizations. Anything that stands out in your mind that might bring all this to fruition? And why, for instance, you single out the democrats for their authoritarianism?
Discrimination against Jews? With 6 out of 22 cabinet positions held by them?
Angry petitioning of idiots in congress <> violent overthrow of government. Anyone who believes otherwise has an agenda.
And, I would point out, that in 2016, after Trump won, there were a couple Democrats whining that they didn't want to certify the electoral college votes. It was Biden who gaveled them down and proceeded with the process. And as much as Democrats hated Trump, I didn't see a hoard of them rush into Congress with zip ties and nooses while police are leading them away from the legislators who are barricading the doors for protection.
Just because most of them were too pathetic to carry it out doesn't alter their clear intentions.
After the three letter agencies inserted themselves in to the election process and the DOJ stood silent maybe it is time to flush this entire government down the toilet bowel of history.
Trump was just a visible symbol that exposed the little man behind the curtain. The shadow gov't had to come out from its' hidden lair to dump Trump. Trump himself is irrelevant but his flushing the real power behind the elected puppets into the open will be his legacy. The complete panic on the part of the Deep State was a sight to behold. Both Democrats and Republicans are cowered completely by the permeant bureaucracy that never dies, sleeps or forgets. It never grows smaller do matter the POTUS or his policies. Solhenitsyn rightly identified them as the "organs of government." A body cannot live without its' organs. We have a case of the lower bowel dictation to the brain.
FROM HIS MOUTH:
"“The affirmative task we have now is, uh, to actually, uh, create, uh, New World Order because the global order is changing again. And the institutions and the rules that worked so well in the post-World War II era for decades, they need to be strengthened, and some need to be changed…. So we have to lead. We have to update the rules of the road, and we have to do it in a way that maximizes benefits for everyone, because it’s overwhelmingly in our interest that China prosper, that Mongolia prosper. …We have to level the playing field.”
“You mean, Mr. Biden, you are more concerned about making sure China and Mongolia prosper than American workers?"
https://relationshipscience.com/person/joseph-r-biden-jr-4403054
https://www.worldviewweekend.com/news/article/8-tenets-new-world-order-revealed-and-every-one-them-ballot-nov-3
The new world order, no one has anything more than anyone else. Do you know what kind of government that is? Hint... voting won't be necessary.
I really hope you're right about Biden not changing much. His parroting of Great Reset "build back better" rhetoric makes me worry about the degree to which he's captured by the companies (tech, pharma, credit card) who are looking to bring "social credit" (rebranded as "social impact investing") to the US with covid as the excuse
You’re like a case study in the DSM.
Centrist democrat in todays day and age is right wing. Pure and simple.
Of course the main problem is propagandists and their following like you on both sides. The Republicans aren't the problem. the Democrats aren't the problem. The Republicans and Democrats are the problem. Get with the program and realize your side is messed up too.
Thank you.
Well, clearly, because convoluted identity politics jargon is a club they can use to bludgeon the economic populist wing of their party with, who they hate more than they ever hated the right.
Obama was a legit electoral victory, both times, because the MSM/ICs had great polls, no reason to activate their resources. His election a lighthouse beacon that the USA was beyond racism. Anybody who suggests otherwise is trying to fool you. I did not vote of him either time but I totally accepted his legitimacy.
Same with Trump 2016. Polls convinced the MSM and ICs and Deep State that Hillary was a shoo in. No actual vote intervention required because the polls convinced them the bitch slap on Bernie plus MSM denialism on legit DNC email leaks was enough. Hillary was a done deal. Then the unthinkable happened and Trump won, legit.
But 2020? Trump was way down in the polls but everyone including the ICS knew those numbers were fake. So the ICs worked their overseas elections magic here, activating Dominion plus the usual foot soldiers, because no way they would make the 2016 mistake again. Every cheat previously used on foreign soil was used here. Ohio may as well be Burma to the Deep State. Hunter laptop was Russian propaganda, remember? LOL!
AZ audit will make clear the corruption of the vote. Or the suppression of the audit will make the same case.
Our gov't, Dem & Rep, legislative and especially executive, is captured by the globalist, giant corporations. Trump stood against them, his mortal sin. We need more Americans like that, be it Trump or another patriot willing to throw themselves into the breech.
Question is, are you an American? Or are you a blip ceding all power to giant multinational corporations as run by the social credit score of YT FB or the CCP?
Great post. Well stated!!
So do sheeple getting suckered by Obama......
Are any of you commenters in Illinois? If you voted for him, why? First Black President. That is a wonderful thing, but apparently all you white people doing that meant nothing because this country is more "racist" than ever?
Before being nominated for Pres, what did he ever accomplish --- seriously --- name something. You voted for him because he was Black. And, tragically, he could have accomplished a lot if he wasn't afraid of losing re-election. He "evolved" on gay marriage after he was re-elected. Just another Chicago politician.
But good for him, Biden is, beyond his wildest dreams, Obama 2.0.
Born and raised in Chicago. Still live here. You do not become a democrat of standing in the state of Illinois (much less Cook County) if you’re not in bed with criminals. That’s just a fact.
Well intended or not, he was raised, promoted, and ordained by a sinister, criminal organization….
I’m not an Obama hater, but anyone in this state knows that only criminals get standing in the Illinois Democratic Party.
Supposedly didn't Obama come to Illinois because of Tony Reszko? Why did he come to Illiinos? Didn't he and M get their home from Rezko? Not saying they didn't pay SOMETHING for it. Wasn't M getting paid 6 figures for a basically ghost payroll job at an Illinois hospital, allegedly? Yes, it has been the hard knock life for Barack and M as members of the Illinois Democratic Party.
And, per prexy 46, he is clean and neat, too.
Obama was good, I liked him, well-meaning I think.
Obama went too far, too fast and got captured by the GloboCaps. I agree his election in 08’ in the abstract-the election of the first African American president-was a good sign for American democracy, but the product occupying the WH was abhorrent, policy-wise. I’ve never heard anything personally negative or obnoxious about Obama.
He liked his smokes. Funny how big a deal eating "bad for you" McDonald's was for Clinton and Trump, but nobody ever took Barry to task for the cancer sticks.
Where were you during PUMA?
Obama just couldn't keep his mouth shut and he got involved in too may local race issues. He inflamed the country, when people were looking towards him to do the opposite. He continues as a flame-thrower but most people don't pay any attention today.
It's all good. He has his sea level mansion now, so he'll be underwater 30 years ago. Wait. Oops. Maybe the Swedish Doom Goblin will go over with her SuperSoaker and spray him down for AOC's camera crew. Grifters gotta grift.
It's okay to ignore morons spouting the type of stuff stxbuck posts.
When you see someone use the term 'sheeple' you never lose anything by disengaging.
Trump supporters are not idiots, but people who call them such are.
idiot trump supporters? Obama did more harm to this nation than anyone else; everything you accuse trump of, obama and biden have done. get your head outta your arse.
I was being ironic, my sentence structure wasn’t great. I meant elite don’t like democracy because they get stuck with what they consider to be trumps idiot supporters. I don’t think Trump supporters are idiots I think they have a legitimate concerns.
There are idiot supporters of all politicians. AOC has idiot supporters. Pelosi has idiot supporters. Gaetz has idiot supporters. McConnell has idiot supporters. Reagan had idiot supporters, so did Obama.
Not all idiots are the same kind of idiot. Some are morons. Some are half-wits. A few may be imbeciles. They don't have the same lapses in knowledge and intellect, but rest assured, they are out there, every election.
AHHHHHHH SHADDUP!
As do disgusting Moronic Biden voters
I like that, certainly a different perspective, I’m not 100% sure what to make of it, but it is certainly food for thought
I read that very interesting, once again I’m not that sure what to make of it
But what are the implications of voters mattering when people can't know who to believe about basic reality.
For the last five years, I've beennthe home health care provider for my elderly mother. It's a 24/7 job, but it leaves me an almost insane amount of time to absorb lots of information.
I do leftist podcasts, read articles and books, etc. I have lots of formal education and try to sift through it all critically. I have to be an outlier in terms of the high-information voter, and then I read this stuff, and I don't what the fuck to believe.
I believe in democracy and the collective wisdom of the common man, but with media the way it is now, I'm getting scared of democracy.
Thank you for your project to fix this, but I don't know if it can be fixed.
Thank you for taking care of your mom.
Masha Gessen has written a couple excellent pieces on this, using Russia as the example. The idea isn't to propagandize you into believing some specific thing, but it's to get you to the point where you question everything and are unable to discern reality. So, the average person just says fuck it and buys another bottle of vodka. The un-average person (you) remains coherent, but withdraws. Either way, the dominant power wins.
I have no solution other than to stay coherent and try not to withdraw.
The more you learn the more you know how ignorant you are. I've been listening more to voices outside the mainstream for 2-3 years and it can get frustrating to the point of anger when you see how much bullshit is fed to us daily. Just try to find people who seem to be more interested in speaking truth than increasing their subscription numbers and pass it along to those around you if they're receptive.
Well, even when you get who/what you voted for, you don't get who/what you voted for. It's still a charade even when your gal or guy wins.
Trump is proving to be right on many issues...
"voters still mattered"
That's a very good point which I had not thought about, but here we are post-2020 and more Americans than ever believe their vote doesn't. What a flip.
I shared this same sentiment at the time, but sensed all to well what was about to unfold.
Those who lost faith in democracy because Trump won an election are simple whiny simpletons. Guess what: in a democracy the candidate you want to win isn't going to do so every time. As Matt says below his victory is weirdly a good sign that voters matter. Trump won because the Democrat party nominated a horrible elitist candidate, uniquely despised by many, who couldn't be bothered to campaign for the entire month of August before the election. Further, and at least as important, the Democrat party abandoned middle America in favor of global elitism. HRC and Obama before her, insulted those left behind by the globalists, and they finally got pissed off enough to vote for just about ANYONE who showed a little empathy for their plight. Trump won more because of what he wasn't than for what he was. If Dems don't figure this out, and it doesn't look like they will, they are in for more crushing defeats.
I thought for sure the DNC was going to get the hint from 2016 that the populace is sick of corporate funded warmongering presidents. It wasn't until Bernie got bronze a second time that I realized how bull headed they really are. I found it hilarious how close 2020 was, beating Trump was almost there for the taking and Biden barely managed to squeak by.
Only in a Republican's version of democracy can a candidate win 3 million more votes than her opponent and still be treated to a "crushing defeat."
"Trump won more because of what he wasn't than for what he was."..... There it is, in a nutshell.
Jeff, well said.
By whom? The loss of faith in democracy was not by the Trump voters... but rather the entrenched political class (and its satellite professionals - lawyers, bureaucrats, "journalists")
I don't disagree at all. See Matt's spot-on review of Thomas Frank's "The People, No"
Better yet, read Frank's "The People, No". It's excellent.
Yeah, I ordered it a couple of days ago. I'll decide after reading it whether to read the rest of him. I had always been fooled by the "agreeable personality" Matt describes, so I thought Frank couldn't possibly be shaking things up.
I would argue that trump voters long ago lost their faith in democracy, and the next logical step to this loss of faith was voting for a candidate like trump.
You don't get it. Trump voters found renewed faith in democracy by beating the elitists.
So they lost their faith in democracy, by voting? You shouldn't argue, it makes you look foolish.
I think Jeff was closer on this one...."Trump won more because of what he wasn't than for what he was." I work with a lot of Trumpers, it's awful, but it's what the industry is. Dems did not have a clue to just how despised HRC was/is as she represented everything that is gutting their life. Whether or not anyone has a renewed faith in democracy or the opposite is unknowable. Faith is complicated; voting against everything you despise is not so complicated.
Trump's election was a failure of democracy to the left, not because the system rigged it, but because it has proven to the newly defined Branch Covidians the Democracy allows deplorable people the ability to vote. While that right cannot be denied outright, the new angle is to stack the deck and change the rules of the game as to eliminate this deplorable groups ability to have a real impact on outcomes.
This tactic has been practiced in places like California and the next step is a national release.
Have you noticed the many states stacking the deck to prevent people of color and Democrats from voting. EVERYONE should have a path to voting; there should be national holidays to vote and the polls stay open all night if necessary. That would be actual democracy.
You mean because black folks are too stupid to get ID? Those laws? Or the laws your people wish to pass that allow ballot stuffing and the like?
I haven't noticed, because it ain't so. Go ahead and elaborate.
Ask Greg Palast.
TAKE THE MEDS
The issue is for some reason the Trump-lovers found their way to the polls. The Trump-haters needed their votes collected on their behalf. This is the issue at stake... whether or not people actually care enough about the outcome to place their own ballot, or whether we have by-proxy elections via political party mechanism. Both of the parties like the concept of the proxy vote... because they can manage it. The Republicans haven't signed on because they don't yet know how to turn Trump voters into Jeb! type supporters.
The issue is about what we can believe, and I do think our adversarial court system is as close as we can get.
These issues have been tried in courts and were tossed out in resounding detail. Local judges aren't quite as subject to these larger distortions, so if you or anyone can show these claims you make, they are still available to you.
Baseball pitchers making millions of dollars sneak Spider Tack onto their fingers to increase their spin rate by 300rpm because it gives them a perceived advantage. You don't think that either party in a 2 party system doesn't look to harness any advantage it can when harvesting ballots without a foolproof chain of custody?
As Michael Corleone once said, "Look who's being naive, Kay."
I think you fell off your horse somewhere along the ride here....
Typical Lib. Bluest state in the nation with the worst of its problems, still blaming republicans. You people are feckless cunts.
I’d vote for Tulsi too.
I would say that "The Trump election inspired a loss of faith in the people that voted for Trump." It was simply incidental that democracy itself was bad because it allowed for Trump supporters to support him. the answer is, of course, that democracy doesn't work because it allowed Trump to be elected. therefore democracy and all its components must be exorcised. This includes the supreme court, the filibuster, the electoral college, etc... It is just all an accident that these changes would help democrats and hurt republicans. If they were ever enacted and Republicans somehow ever gained power again, the left would howl for the return of these things, saying anything less would be racist.
I think Gary Heminger nailed it. Don’t worry about Trump, the loss of faith is with the 75 million people who put him in power and the left/elite revile us. They are on the right side of history. The right side of history, what a justification, with that level of certainty anything is possible. Brace yourself! Our a illiberal moment has just begun. Be afraid.
Yes. Why can’t we measure just how much fraud occurred, and how it occurred. Shine a little light
So now the comments will be dominated by politics. Pity. I was looking forwards to something actually interesting and informative and a bit less worn out.
Biden has a NON Democratic NON Republic Agenda. His phony equality will doom this country because that's what is required from this country for other countries to prosper, the death of the US:
"“The affirmative task we have now is, uh, to actually, uh, create, uh, a<u><b> New World Order </b></u>because the global order is changing again. And the institutions and the rules that worked so well in the post-World War II era for decades, they need to be strengthened, and some need to be changed…. So we have to lead. We have to update the rules of the road, and we have to do it in a way that maximizes benefits for everyone, because it’s overwhelmingly in our interest that China prosper, that Mongolia prosper. …We have to level the playing field. ”
“You mean, Mr. Biden, you are more concerned about making sure China and Mongolia prosper than American workers?"
https://relationshipscience.com/person/joseph-r-biden-jr-4403054
https://www.worldviewweekend.com/news/article/8-tenets-new-world-order-revealed-and-every-one-them-ballot-nov-3
thats heterodoxy
I thought my use of the word “purported” would indicate that Matt’s statement about the trump election was not to be accepted on face value and needed serious scrutiny and examination.
By the way, I didn't vote for Obama but I didn't lose faith in democracy when he won. I just lost a little bit of faith in voters to make a quality pick. Because I think they voted for Social Justice that day and that has led to where we are today and what Matt decries in this article. Because Social Justice isn't really justice.
Correct. I had actual(misplaced) hope that race relations would improve
I did as well, but, unfortunately, Obama acted as a neo-lib in PC clothing, just like his post-presidency career. Clarence Thomas, Sen. Tim Scott, Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’ Neal and even rappers-Ice Cube, Willie Dee-have been far more inclined to human brotherhood based approaches to race relations than the neo lib tool Obama.
Yep. Until I noticed the big O was indistinguishable from bush. A figurehead for the man
I'm rather certain that is not what Matt "decries" in the article.
I think the article is pointing out the problem with substituting evidence-based due process with approved narrative. That’s Social Justice.
That's not "social justice." Not to quibble or cavil unnecessarily, but I think we all have to be careful here. "Social Justice," anchored historically in its traditional meaning, is presumably a set of ideas that have been pursued, fought for, bandied about and defended since humans first formed governments and organized clearly defined cultures. It remains a rather vague and malleable term.
However, the pursuit of "social justice" has been traditionally on behalf of the lower strata of society, pursued by those seeking a greater degree of autonomy within a given society, or sometimes by advocates from the upper strata. These groups traditionally have been the poor, people practicing heterodox religions or harboring beliefs, minorities, individuals in the grips of bondage or economic servitude, etc.
The chief characteristic that has defined these groups throughout history, is a distinct lack of social "power" that might otherwise allow them to formally articulate grievances, and the ability to secure redress of these grievances through the mechanisms of a formal "justice" system or legislative body that are recognized as "legitimate" by the general citizenry.
The term "social justice," it seems to me, has been casually misappropriated here by two factions to define an amorphous, incoherent, shifting set of demands, grievances, etc. advocated by one faction, and equally opposed by another.
The cautionary point I wish to make is that when two factions employ the same term to define two sets of ideas that are at cross purposes, the purchase those words hold on the language begins to erode.
In the spirit of Orwell, and regardless of what iron one has in this fire, we ought not to allow language to become a casualty in the debate.
I certainly agree that language and the meaning of words should be shared and constant. One of the most divisive and destabilizing aspects of our world today is the postmodernist’s game of manipulating language. It’s preventing us from communicating because where we sit now is left and right have their own meanings of many words.
My understanding of the demands of today’s Progressives is they want courts and governments to make decisions and distribute power and benefits according to identities, not according to merit that has been judged by an objective standard. They are calling that Social Justice.
I’ve been thinking that we’ve always had Social Justice under that definition, but it’s historically bestowed benefits in the US to white people, largely at the expense of black people. It’s the institution we’ve been trying to rid ourselves of for 50-60 years. Instead of pushing it out, Progressives just want to turn the tables and start taking the (ill-gotten) benefits from whites and bestowing them on blacks and other identities that have been out of power.
It's an interesting point that both Matt and you make. I'm thinking that Democrats lost faith in Democracy because Trump won, and Republicans lost faith in Democracy because Biden won. I doubt those two ideas have anything to do with elections or Democracy, but rather have everything to do with the sorting that has taken place in our society. We hang around with and get our information from people who agree with us and tell us what we want to hear. And we don't trust the other side.
I would have no problem (other then disagreeing with his agenda) with Biden’s election if the manifest fraud had not occurred
If the manifest fraud is real, it can be shown in a court. (local judges being somewhat insulated from this larger issue of Truth)
It was tried with gusto and failed in redounding detail over and over.
If you have a case you can show, the courts are there for you.
Wrong. Almost all were tossed for “lack of standing” and no evidence evaluated. In a truly Orwellian twist cases brought before the election were deemed “too early” those brought after “too late”. No question there was extensive fraud. The question is whether it was determinative
That's right - because the courts said harm had not been displayed,'yet' - but it was a Catch-22 because they wouldn't let 'harm' be investigated.
Think about it. In 2016, Trump lost the popular vote but won the electoral college by less than 100K votes spread out over a handful of states.
In 2020, during a pandemic and recession, the vote slightly shifted the other way.
Is that so incredible to believe? Combine that with the amount of eyeballs on the election and the numerous court cases finding no evidence of fraud.
Did you read the orders? (because that's the explanation people who didn't usually give)
Even with standing being dispositive, the courts went through the evidence. Arguably the best case for Trump was in Pennsylvania, and while the court dismissed it on standing, it also spent a couple hundred pages on showing the evidence didn't meet the low bar to proceed on.
Judges know that their decisions will live on as public record, and most of them take their roles seriously.
No question, no question at all....
Let's see what happens in AZ and other states, then we can conclude.
Manifestly untrue. Just an assertion without evidence. Not to mention naive
I think the democrats and republicans both lost faith in democracy because there was a lot of money to be made in losing faith in democracy.
Strongly agreed.
"Republicans" such as Mitch McConnell and Jeb! and Boehner? and Ryan& lost faith in democracy when Trump won the GOP primary.
This is accurate. But something to keep in mind about this sorting. It certainly isn't democrat/republican or right/left. There is a substantial number of people who want no part of this sorting, and see it as a means of advancing the agendas of the few at the expense of the many. The few are united in their pursuit of their agenda. They are the ones who hold overwhelming most of the economic power in the U.S, and the means to deploy it to their ends.
The many have many agendas, but few they agree on, and hence the pursuit of these agendas is scattershot with little chance of coalescing into a single mutually agreed upon agenda. A single agenda informed by many agendas that might achieve real goals and offer relief from the current chaos that surrounds us. That is the task before us. And it is chaos.
I think there is a sorting according to personality and world view. People moving from county to city and from city to country. People moving from blue states to red states. There's sorting according to where we get our news. Maybe call it epistemological sorting.
There are a lot of problems with this sorting, not the least of which is we end up with a lot of people with conflicting realities.
I first became aware of the likelihood of a lab leak by simply googling Wuhan in mid-January 2020, and noting that a virology lab doing coronavirus research was in a densely populated area.
By the end of that month, Zero Hedge posted a lengthy run of speculation on the role of the lab, concentrating on the human factor, namely recent hires at the lab who might not have been well-trained enough to work in such an exacting and dangerous environment. ZH’s twitter account was then suspended.
In April 2020 I read Yuri Deigin’s essay in Medium about the scientific basis for the likelihood that the virus was the result of GOF research. Weinstein interviewed him in June (?) 2020. As Eric Weinstein—Bret’s brother—has said the purpose of propaganda is to create an unwarranted societal consensus. Likewise, the purpose of censorship is to prevent the creation of a warranted consensus.
In mid-December 2019, I was surprised to see dozens of videos leaking out of China and landing on Twitter about something afoot at hospitals. In one such video you see people milling about an emergency room entrance, holding up phones, obviously trying to figure out what the hell is happening. An ambulance pulls up and hospital staff rush to take patients into the hospital. On the way out, the drivers snatch at least three people who were recording with phones and stuff them into the ambulance. I shared this Twitter video with a friend sitting nearby, marveling at how an ambulance became a paddy wagon in the blink of an eye. This image, to me, captures the nature of the current “safety state.”
You actually don't have to look to China to see a government that has a cavalier attitude towards pathogens they play God with. The US does the same. In 2019 the CDC shut down Fort Detrick citing these violations:
OBSERVATION 1
Severity level: Serious
The CDC reported that an individual partially entered a room multiple times without the required respiratory protection while other people in that room were performing procedures with a non-human primate on a necropsy table.
“This deviation from entity procedures resulted in a respiratory occupational exposure to select agent aerosols,” the CDC wrote.
OBSERVATION 2
Severity level: Serious
The CDC reported that the lab did not ensure that employee training was properly verified when it came to toxins and select agents.
“These failures were recognized through video review of laboratorians’ working in BSL3 and ABSL3 labs,” their report said. “[These] indicate the [lab]’s means used to verify personnel understood the training had not been effective, leading to increased risk of occupational exposures.”
The CDC went on to specify that a laboratorian who was not wearing appropriate respiratory protection was seen multiple times “partially entering” a room where non-human primates that were infected with [redacted] were “housed in open caging.” They also observed a laboratorian disposing of waste in a biohazardous waste bin without gloves on.
OBSERVATION 3
Severity level: Moderate
In this violation observation, the CDC went into more detail on the incident of the worker not wearing gloves while disposing of biohazardous waste, writing that “biosafety and containment procedures must be sufficient to contain the select agent or toxin.”
The corrective action they recommended was to confirm that relevant personnel have been trained to wear gloves to prevent exposure to hazardous materials.
OBSERVATION 4
Severity level: Serious
In this observation, the CDC notes that the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases had “systematically failed to ensure implementation of biosafety and containment procedures commensurate with the risks associated with working with select agents and toxins.”
The violation specifically observed involved “entity personnel [...] propping open” a door while removing “large amounts of biohazardous waste” from an adjacent room, “[increasing] the risk of contaminated air from [the room] escaping and being drawn into the [redacted]” where the people working “typically do not wear respiratory protection.”
OBSERVATION 5
Severity level: Moderate
The CDC reported that the laboratory failed to safeguard against unauthorized access to select against. They wrote that personal protective equipment worn while decontaminating something contaminated by a select agent had been stored in open biohazard bags, in an area of the facility that the CDC has redacted for security reasons.
“By storing regulated waste in this area, the entity did not limit access to those with access approval,” they wrote.
OBSERVATION 6
Severity level: Moderate
The CDC reports that someone at the lab did not maintain an accurate or current inventory for a toxin.
OBSERVATION 7
Severity level: Low
The CDC reports that a building at the Fort Detrick laboratory didn’t have a “sealed surface to facilitate cleaning and decontamination.” This included cracks around a conduit box, cracks in the ceiling, and a crack in the seam above a biological safety cabinet.
Keenly aware of Ft. Detrick and its August 2019 closure because I live not far from it. The hypothesis that the virus could have been lab-generated does not mean it could have come from only the Wuhan lab, as China's spokespersons were quick to point out. I'd add that governments as well as many researchers not only have a cavalier attitude towards pathogens but a sociopathic/psychopathic stance towards humans.
"On the way out, the drivers snatch at least three people who were recording with phones and stuff them into the ambulance. I shared this Twitter video with a friend sitting nearby, marveling at how an ambulance became a paddy wagon in the blink of an eye."
That is incredible. I wonder if we will ever know the truth about any of this. If we do, will the majority of people care?
What struck me as incredible was not that it happened but that videos like that were trickling onto Chinese SM, then being reposted onto Twitter for several days. I wish I were tech savvy enough to figure out how to copy videos out of YT, Twitter, etc. Receipts are necessary to stop the memory holing.
They’ll care when it happens to them then it’ll be too late
BAS, which published the Nicholas Wade article that finally put a spoke in the wheels of the zoonotic origin theory, recently re-published one from 2014 about relatively recent lab leaks involving H1N1, smallpox, Venezuelan equine encephalitis, SARS, etc. https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/threatened-pandemics-and-laboratory-escapes-self-fulfilling-prophecies/
"The ostensible goal of [GoF] experiments— in which researchers manipulate already-dangerous pathogens to create or increase communicability among humans—is to develop tools to monitor the natural emergence of pandemic strains. Opponents, however, warn that the risk of laboratory escape of these high-consequence pathogens far outweighs any potential advance."
I first became aware when I looked up " Zoonotic Transition" because that's what they were studying. Jamie Metzl, a member of the World Health Organization's International Advisory Committee on Human Genome Editing, has speculated that the coronavirus originated in a lab in Wuhan, China."When they have outbreaks in China, the zoonotic jump [of the virus from animal to humans] tends to happen in the south.
https://news.yahoo.com/adviser-says-likely-coronavirus-leaked-200153962.html
In the same year, 2015, Fauci gave 3.8M to the Wuhan lab to study " Zoonotic Transition" (Bats) how an animal virus penetrates a human cell.
I later found out How Scientists at Wuhan Lab Helped Chinese Army in Secret ...
Search domain msn.comhttps://www.msn.com/en-xl/news/other/how-scientists-at-wuhan-lab-helped-chinese-army-in-secret-project-to-find-animal-viruses/ar-BB1g0GCi
Scientists studying bat diseases at China's maximum-security laboratory in Wuhan were engaged in a massive project to investigate animal viruses alongside leading military officials.
'Wuhan Lab Was Engaged In Military Activity With PLA': Ex ...
Search domain thehongkongpost.comhttps://thehongkongpost.com/2021/06/17/wuhan-lab-was-engaged-in-military-activity-with-pla-ex-us-secy-of-state-mike-pompeo/
'Wuhan Lab was engaged with military activity': Mike Pompeo. Pompeo added that the Wuhan Lab was engaged in activities connected to China's People's Liberation Army (PLA)
This brings US one step closer to what really happened. as the next question would be,
"Were they working on "Biological WARFARE"?
If they were, this seems to be pretty tame stuff (so far). GOF research is required whatever the intent, which may alone be a reason to forbid it internationally.
Agree. As I was writing it the thought crossed my mind that they were looking to be ahead of whatever virus may "Pop Up"!
Weinstein's and Heying's quack stance on the COVID vaccines is what ultimately made me stop watching their podcast. And make no mistake, it's a quack stance: A PhD in Biology, which sounds fancy and gives an impression of subject-matter expertise to the lay public, is in no way an expert on virology, immunology, or the topic of what would make, say, a "traditional" vaccine safer than this new technology, which prompts your body to mount an immune response to a small harmless piece of the vaccine -- ie, which works very much like all other vaccines -- and we have mountains of evidence of its safety and efficacy at this point.
That being said, my personal decision to stop watching them is a far cry from YouTube deciding that no one can watch them. Their heterodox views sometimes land them squarely in the land of common sense. For example, the lab leak hypothesis is a lot more credible than the zoonotic hypothesis, and they were some of the first people willing to discuss it. We can't simply rule out a lab leak for the sake of political convenience, which is exactly what the international scientific community, several powerful governments, and the mainstream media all attempted to do in early 2020. Now that a zoonotic origin has been drummed so hard into the public imagination that it falls in the category of "things every smart person 'knows,'" it's very hard to revisit the lab leak hypothesis, but let's give Weinstein and Heying credit where credit is due -- they didn't back down.
And that's why, even though in my view they are total cranks on the subject of the vaccine (and worse: in portraying themselves as experts on the topic to an undiscerning public, when they are not, and they know -- or should know -- they are not), I fully support them NOT being censored in any way, no matter how much damage their views about the vaccine might potentially cause.
From the point of view of pure self-interest, we can't shut up people with views we dislike without making ourselves vulnerable to being shut up when we have something unpopular to say. (Ira Glasser speaks eloquently on this; and it's particularly sad to see the ACLU jump on the woke zombie-bus and become as censorious as everyone else in the mainstream -- for example, on the topic of protecting the speech rights of those who perceive serious medical and ethical harms of a blind "affirmative" approach for youth with gender dysphoria. The ACLU is content to shut those people up and claim it's "hate speech," when they seem for all the world to be experienced professionals raising good-faith concerns. But that's a whole 'nother topic.)
So...Trump, Alex Jones, and Weinstein/Heying -- I might hate some of what they say, and yet I defend their right to say it. Let them speak, and ultimately history will be the judge of who was right.
Unfortunately our leaders/elite have lied to us so frequently and comprehensively that we are especially open to voices and thoughts they are trying to eliminate
Yes -- the principle of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" (sort of).
Well reasoned and stated! It is troubling that the censorious do not grasp that one can simply stop listening. Perhaps this is because the censorious do not hesitate to force feed their ideas and opinions and see themselves and others as helpless pate geese.
Right. I ignore NYT/WAPO etc because of history of lying. My choice.
Me too. I get more from subscribing to Matt than i do from the entire slate of NYT or Wapo opinion writers.
LinkedIn (owned by Microsoft) is removing links to a study in the American Journal of Therapeutics and declaring them misinformation https://twitter.com/SeivwrightTrudy/status/1407285117891092482?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Oxford University is in https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/oxford-university-explores-anti-parasitic-drug-ivermectin-covid-19-treatment-2021-06-22/
piece of the virus* not piece of the vaccine
This new MRNA shot stimulates the body‘s cells to create the spike protein of the virus. The spike protein is what was found to be producing the most serious ill effects. The spike protein was supposed to stay locally and just cause your body to mount an immune response. However it has been discovered that shot causes the body to create millions of spike protein and they do not remain local. The spike protein appears to be the culprit in the adverse reactions being experienced.
This is not quackery.
You're repeating things you've heard secondhand, and yes, that is quackery. You don't understand what the spike protein is or what it does, in the virus itself or as part of the response created by the vaccine. Show me the published evidence from subject-matter experts, along with published evidence of harm, and then we can discuss it.
That is your assumption. I ask you to show me published evidence from subject matter experts that there is no harm. You made the first assertion. Prove no harm.
One can't prove a negative -- and if you had the most rudimentary background in science, you'd know how ridiculous that statement is. The millions of doses are out there now, in millions of bodies, and the safety and efficacy is pretty obvious at this point. It's a very short while to full approval by FDA.
Hi B Price
I know what you mean and I applaud your free speech stance...but Julie Maizels does have a point, it seems to me.
Otherwise we are at risk of https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof
Just a cursory scroll through a few pages of https://www.openvaers.com/openvaers leads me to suspect there is a safety signal there, that needs addressing.
Julie is correct when she recommends that it is actually you that have the burden of proof to refute the 97,226 pages gathered.
Another option is for for skeptics to go and collect the money on offer from Steve Kirsch:
"...To win the $1M prize, all you have to do is to provide a convincing argument that the NIH or WHO NEUTRAL and AGAINST recommendations on fluvoxamine or ivermectin (existing on May 21, 2021 when I am making this offer) are:
1. more likely to fit the evidence than recommendations FOR these drugs, or
2. more likely to save more lives than recommending FOR these drugs.
Either method of proof is fine: fit the facts or superior cost-benefit. You have two completely independent ways to win each prize. What could be easier?..."
https://trialsitenews.com/if-you-can-prove-that-the-nih-and-who-got-their-treatment-guidelines-right-you-could-win-2m/
Oh dear! How did we get on the topic of ivermectin? We were on the topic of whether Weinstein and Heying are cranks when it comes to the vaccine ("yes"). We've got boatloads of data at this point. All strong treatments carry some small risk of harm. Chemo can harm you. Antibiotics can harm you. The only drugs that are completely harmless are things like homeopathy, ie, things that are completely harmless are also completely ineffective. If there's an effective drug or vaccine, it will also produce a few undesirable effects a small portion of the time. That's the cost. It's a bigger cost to let COVID run rampant throughout the world, killing millions of people. The avalanche of data in favor of "benefit" in the cost-benefit calculus of these mRNA vaccines versus COVID is so overwhelming that I just can't have this conversation with you. It's too obvious and therefore too frustrating. I'm sorry. Please believe what you wish and please be well.
Hi B Price
"...If there's an effective drug or vaccine, it will also produce a few undesirable effects a small portion of the time. That's the cost. It's a bigger cost to let COVID run rampant throughout the world, killing millions of people..."
I respectfully disagree, my position is summarized by
https://www.juliusruechel.com/2021/06/washingtons-inoculation-gamble.html
You'll notice I'm not using blanket statements or patronizing you by stooping to emotional reasoning as you do with these comments: "Oh dear!", "It's too obvious and therefore too frustrating".
This is the comment section of TK News, where the last two posts being discussed are on the topic of ivermectin and censorship of a heterodox scientist who is discussing ivermectin.
I suspect you are not used to people pushing back against your viewpoints?
Maybe you could read https://www.amazon.com/Nonsense-Herrings-Sacred-Everyday-Language/dp/1604191252 and come back when you are not "sorry" and ready to back yourself?
Please refer me to a link where I can read your avalanche of data....or not 😁
No one has been able to explain to me how promulgating the lab leak theory was a threat to public health.
This is not about public health and never has been.
Spot on. It's much more about Trumps speculation of the origin, and his posture towards China. Since orange man bad, we must take the other side. In a public health emergency that's no way to run a railroad.
Media companies go political to avoid self-improvement.
Well, if racism is a public health crisis... and blaming the leak on a foreign country's lab workers leads to white supremacists committing racist acts like shooting massage parlor indentured servants... and then...
Alright, let's say that the election of Trump inspired a loss of faith in Democracy. So the solution is to embrace intellectual fascism? That's like trying to cure a hangover by downing a bottle of rat poison.
Using poor Gary Webb as an example was spot on but depressing since the guy put a bullet (or 2 depending on who you believe) in his head after losing his entire life over a story that turned out to be true. This doesn't bode well for either Mr. Taibbi or Mr. Weinstein.
Geez, so John Stewart made the lab leak hypothesis palatable? So what's his medical degree in, the humorous side of slow death by pandemic? In other words, the left wing of America is living inside the same pop culture personality cult that they accused right wingers of living in when they voted for Trump. If Jimmy Kimmel or Jon Stewart says it's true then it's true. Great fucking plan.
Sorry for the disjointed nature of this comment. I wrote it as I was reading the article.
Y'know I spent 1/2 hour watching CNN this morning. In that 1/2 hour I learned that I should be terrified of guns & gun owners because the pandemic turned everyone into sad little bunnies who have cracked under the pressure of being locked down with the comfy chair & the enforced binge watching of Netflix. Poor little bunnies. My heart bleeds for your pain.
They followed that up with a story about the weather & how I should be terrified of heat in summer because it's, like, really hot.
For a group of folk who have hitched their wagon to entities like BLM, who want to bring this society down, are they so completely lacking in self awareness that they don't realize they wouldn't survive 10 minutes without this society's big fat nipple in their mouths?
MEDS
Today's and yesterday's substack articles were great, and greatly appreciated. This whole situation has a kind of Star Wars plotline (the original,.watchable ones I mean) to it. Every smart person with a platform saying true stuff that pisses off Dark Vader is playing the role of Luke Skywalker. 98% of the media and politicians, and not just in the US, are with the Empire.
Help us Obie One Kenobe.
Since 1958, the Gallup polling organization has periodically asked Americans how much they trust the federal government to do what is right. In 1958, 73 percent said ‘always’ or ‘most of the time’. Trust hit its high point in 1964, when that figure stood at 77 percent.
Then it began to fall. By 1980, only 27 percent trusted the government to do what is right. That percentage rebounded to the low forties during the Reagan years, then fell to a new low, 19 percent, in 1994. It rebounded again, hitting a short-lived high of 54 percent just after 9/11. Then it plunged again, hitting another new low, 15 percent, in 2011. It has been in the 15- to 20 percent range ever since.
A government that is distrusted by more than 80 percent of the citizens has a bipartisan legitimacy problem.
What you put up is what I want to learn from. But. Has our country changed, or has the media changed; and the availability of media. It appears to me that the media tail/tale is wagging the dog. Lets go back to covid. Why was it OK for big box places to be open, but not our local shops. They just made it a point to scare everybody to f'in to death so of course. And now, the world HAS changed, and to deny that is naive. The challenge is, what f'n world?
...and they know it.
Why else are National Guard canters stocking up on troop transport equipment all over the country?
Honest question: Is a state's national guard obligated to go to DC? Can't they --- DC --- protect their own backside? Maybe DC isn't ready for prime time.
And regarding your comment about the NGc, are any headed to stop illegal birthing people? Just trying to get used to the new lingo. So confused.
Someone's been reading Murray's new book!
Yup....😎
Weinstein is an arrogant, self absorbed imperious fuck with a god complex who should have been required to enter an employee assistance program EAP RATHER THAN BE FIRED.
But the 50 pests at his office door suffer from the same problem.
What’s the diff?
Weinstein had and exercised POWER which the students lacked bec they were students and *not* professors… exacerbated because as a “popular” professor he used the additional power of that popularity to brutalize the 50 … and they responded with full retaliatory force.
The students used the only power available to then and Weinstein should have been smart, humble and gracious enough to SIT DOWN on the hall floor, shut up, and fucking LISTEN to them rather than trying to convert them to his point of view in his typical “popular” elite white supremacist settler colonizing Lord God Of All dominant way.
What a twat.
However, that DOES NOT MEAN he should be censored by YouTube et al and that the information and perspective he brings to the covid issues should not be considered …
Indeed, his views SHOULD be considered … in the precise OPPOSITE way that he FAILED to listen to and consider the views of those 50 students and their legitimate — NOT woke — racial justice issues.
A young Lyndon Johnson was once told that ‘when your mouth is open, you ain’t listenin’ nor learning.’ Someone should tell that to Weinstein … and to the Fascists of Silicon Valley, the deep state, the medical Big Pharna insurance industrial complex, the ruling capitalist elites and the damned CIA loving , Wall Street whiting Democrats.
I watched with considerable fascination actually hours and hours of video from the 2017 Evergreen protests, and no, those students did not have legitimate racial justice issues. They were deeply confused, and were being led around by the nose by people covetous of power.
And envious of competence.
There was a definite Cultural Revolution taint to it.
Why on Christ’s name would you watch “hours and hours of video”? What is in it for you? What is your angle? Your bias ?
Maybe people watch things like this so they can generate informed ideas about things? Know thy enemy comes to mind.
Why do you apparently spend hours and hours submitting comments here? What's in it for you?
Why would you read thousands of words of comments
SHUT THE F*CK UP E. PIERCE
YES YOU ARE!
Get help.
Fuck you. Restart your meds. Learn to listen. And read. They used to teach both on the lower elementary grades.
MEDS
Bret Weinstein--a man who I'd wager has never done a pull-up or deadlift in his life--"brutalized" a mob of 50 students on his own? Do you have video? I'd like to see that.
Verbal brutalizations you fucking asshole.
Pot, kettle, black
STFU
Get counseling Thom
You can’t read your refuse to listen and you want ME to get help? You are a total toxic masculinist prick.
Weinstein “brutalized” the 50 students? Really? How did he “brutalize” them? By going to class?
By refusing to respect them and listen to them. I think it is called mmmk errr “deescalation” I think but I could be wrong.
First of all, I’m pretty sure he did try to have a discussion with them and the students were the ones who refused to listen. But even if he didn’t, refusing to listen to somebody isn’t “brutalizing” them. If somebody says to me that they were “brutalized,” I’m gonna assume that they were tortured/raped/sodomized or otherwise physically harmed. Anybody who says,”He didn’t listen to me, I was brutalized,” is a pussy who’s never actually been in a fight and had their ass kicked/kicked somebody else’s ass. Brutalized? Gimme a fucking break…
Is it respect they want or just Subsidy?
Africa hunger, famine: Facts, FAQs, and how to help ...
https://www.worldvision.org/hunger-news-stories/africa-hunger-famine-facts
In the whole of Africa, 250 million people were experiencing hunger, which is nearly 20% of the population. Conditions are deteriorating across six countries in East Africa, where 7 million people are at risk of starvation and another 33.8 million face acute food insecurity. At least 12.8 million children are acutely malnourished in the region.
Illegitimacy rate in Africa is 80%! US African Illegitimacy illegitimacy 72"%.
They came here and brought their culture and why Scandinavian countries countries don't want them. They have single payer and don't want it destroyed.
SHADDUP
‘when Weinstein's mouth is open, he ain’t listenin’ nor learning.’ Someone should tell that to Weinstein … and to the Fascists of Silicon Valley, the deep state, the medical Big Pharna insurance industrial complex, the ruling capitalist elites and the damned CIA loving , Wall Street whiting Democrats.
Hey! He doesn't belong in your Elitist lineup.
" Weinstein should have been smart, humble and gracious enough to SIT DOWN on the hall floor, shut up, and fucking LISTEN to them rather than trying to convert them to his point of view in his typical “popular” elite white supremacist settler colonizing Lord God Of All dominant way."
" force my resignation based on a meritless accusation!" Did you miss the part where he was thrown out as a White Supremacist? Baring Whites from a campus meeting of any kind is UGLY RACISM.
BTW, other countries have the right to protect their CULTURAL MAJORITY and say NO to uncontrolled and debilitating Diversity:
Switzerland – 90% European.
French 80%, French
Italian - 83% European
Sweden - 82% are Swedish.
Finland - 90% are Finnish
Norway - 86.2% are ethnic Norwegians.
Denmark, 86.9% are Danish
Chinese, 91.6% Han
US, 60% European
Imported poverty makes a big difference. They can afford health care because they pay 70% taxes and don't allow foreign invasion.
So you assume all those countries are WHITE SUPREMACIST?
The Japanese are openly racist, and damn proud of it. In fact, both leaders and voters have become steadily less open to immigration as they have witnessed how it has roiled the U.S. and the UK. As for “cultural diversity,” just rule that out. The few immigrants they tolerate (mostly teachers) must agree to do things *their* way. It’s the non-negotiable condition of being on Japanese soil.
And yet, with its acceptance of numerous different tribes and partial integration of many of them -- admittedly a sometimes difficult and costly process -- the US, by 1945, was the last man standing in a world largely devastated by racism, nationalism, tribalism, and class war. So maybe it was also doing something right, if only occasionally and by accident.
Trumpists are racist and damn proud of it. So that makes it ok?
Behold Democrats. Same Nazism, different window dressing.
Do you hear yourself. It seems the racists are the people who pit one group against the other like "The White Man is the Devil" and teaching that to kids.
Do you really believe Africa, Central and South America are able to take care of their citizens?
Afghanistan ($4.89 billion)
Israel ($3.3 billion)
Jordan ($1.72 billion)
Egypt ($1.46 billion)
Iraq ($960 million)
Ethiopia ($922 million)
Yemen ($809 million)
Colombia ($800 million)
Nigeria ($793 million)
Lebanon ($790 million)
Do you believe in Darwin?
Do you believe in Science?
I say let Nature take it's course.
You're the racist. How dare you say it's ok to shove another culture down my throat and when I throw up you call me a racist. You have nerve.
I HATE FREDDIE DE BORE
" ....Did you miss the part where he was thrown out as a White Supremacist? Baring Whites from a campus meeting of any kind is UGLY RACISM...."
This didn't happen. Do your homework. I've posted many conversations involving Peter Dorman, Professor of economics at Evergreen State, who, being a faculty member, was privy to the brouhaha and has refuted many of the false claims and inventions that found their way into the Publicsphere. There's plenty of other stuff on the web, easily found, that supports this view too.
I'm an Independent. If you have anything to substantiate your claim, that would throw another light on this. that would be good. The Whole picture is recommended.
Due to its compositional tactility, I really don't think dog shit can accurately be described as "greasy." My experience is that dog shit is either "wet" or "dry," whether it's stored in a sack or not.
STFU
Imported poverty makes a big difference? We allow foreign invasion? 82% of Sweden's population is....Swedish? The things one can learn around here.
Uncontrolled and debilitating diversity: Just say no! I like this.
Perhaps if trump is reelected in 2024, Melania can pull a Nancy Reagan and adopt this slogan. Maybe tour grade schools with the message. Think we have a job for her, if she's already planning ahead.
DIVERSE, for a homogeneous society becoming more heterogeneous through the influx of foreign elements with different cultural backgrounds, possessing the potential to create disharmony within the previous culture.
“These results suggest that rather than ushering in a more tolerant future, the increasing diversity of the nation may instead yield intergroup hostility.”
Far from stray findings, Einstein says, the results are in line with “a huge line of scholarship” suggesting that “greater conflict emerges from greater interracial contact.”
http://www.bu.edu/articles/2014/does-diversity-breed-intolerance/
"Richer countries more likely to be homogenous." The more ethnically homogeneous the more successful
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/05/16/a-revealing-map-of-the-worlds-most-and-least-ethnically-diverse-countries/
Diversity - diverge
di•verge dĭ-vûrj′, dī-►
intransitive verb To go or extend in different directions from a common point; branch out.
intransitive verb To depart from an established pattern or norm; deviate.
Example:
Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets;
“Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to d-i-e … Through love of having children (ANCHOR WELFARE), we are going to take over. DIVERSE!
Thank you for saying the silent part out loud. The public sees you now.
What was the silent part?
What we see is that White people aren't suppressing anyone. That Kids from Guatemala will be in the same IQ range of 79 no matter how much exposure they have to education and why Latinos have been here longer than Asians but stay in the same income bracket.
Some LOUDNESS for David.
Asia/India $80,000 - $120,000 – IQ 108
White....... $71,922 to $76,057- IQ 102
Hispanic.. $52,382 to $56,113 - IQ 89
Do you still want to blame schools, teachers and White People?
You are engaging in the same racist mindset as the CRT crowd, looking only at race and outcomes. Naw brah. We are all created equal. If you think that means exactly alike, then you really do not understand the Constitution.
Thank you. That was very enlightening. That's why the IQ of whole countries differ. Like the IQ of Guatemala is 79 and the IQ of China is 108. California is trying to teach classes with students having a 30 IQ point difference and spending $13,000,000,000. in special education and left is blaming teachers and white people for the difference in incomes
Biden has banned European migration. They're smarter than him.... can't have that. He insists on only people with low IQs and foists them on the schools.
The effect of the left's choice of immigrants:
Two Blue States:
Massachusetts: 17% Foreign born IQ 104
California: 27% foreign born IQ 95
The dumbing down of the US.
Truth.
Thank you. That was an astute observation. Your thought is not racist because you mentions no particular race only Culture which is the heart of the matter.
MEDS
Actually, yes. Those countries (sans China, natch) are absolutely white supremacists. And they don't give a shit if you call them that. They know it. They like it that way. It's in their constitutions - their language is official, they don't offer birthright citizenship, etc. They don't want to change, and aren't going to. Certainly not because of Twitter.
The irony is... prior to President 45, the whole argument against Republican rule was... "Why can't we be more like the Scandinavian Countries..."
Just because they prefer their own culture which is familiar to them, does not mean they are supremacists. It means they are like Japan, China, South Africa, Australia. All successful countries are Supremacists? Is that how you decide who's a supremacist? They are the most successful places in the world. WHY SHOULD THEY CHANGE? I NEVER heard anyone say, "Why can't we be more like the Scandinavian Countries..." Never heard that till we started WELFARE for everyone and OPEN BORDERS.
You are an idiot! We were better than all those Scandinavian Countries. In the 60's, 80% of my high school in NJ went to college and that included Black children when they still had fathers. You can't blame the people who remember our most successful and harmonious years. The irony? You're right. they have to die before you can finish destroying this country .
The new republic, the new PLAN, bringing all their success to our country so it can be like their home country.
Augustin Cebada, Brown Berets;
“Go back to Boston! Go back to Plymouth Rock, Pilgrims! Get out! We are the future. You are old and tired. Go on. We have beaten you. Leave like beaten rats. You old white people. It is your duty to d-i-e … Through love of having children, we are going to take over.
Is this your plan???? Cause that's what's happening.
Big problem w racism on mmm Norway and Sweden. Wonder where we get it from?
It just so happens that they live in a cold Climate. Most poverty laden countries are from warm climates where there is no excuse for not harvesting your own food. What do you think the basic problem With Africa is? If you have an answer, it might help the African Americans in this country but they don't seem to change even when moving to another country. BTY Africa has an illegitimacy rate of 80% US African Americans, 72%.
Africa hunger, famine: Facts, FAQs, and how to help ...
https://www.worldvision.org/hunger-news-stories/africa-hunger-famine-facts
In the whole of Africa, 250 million people were experiencing hunger, which is nearly 20% of the population. Conditions are deteriorating across six countries in East Africa, where 7 million people are at risk of starvation and another 33.8 million face acute food insecurity. At least 12.8 million children are acutely malnourished in the region.
SHUT UP
"....The irony is... prior to President 45, the whole argument against Republican rule was... "Why can't we be more like the Scandinavian Countries..."
Enough already. I believe the argument in favor of Scandinavia was for its egalitarian social programs and the income equality delivered by it's economic system, not because the place is crawling with honkies.
"....The irony is... prior to President 45, the whole argument against Republican rule was... "Why can't we be more like the Scandinavian Countries..."
TAKE MASSIVE DOSES OF MEDS
Obviously I wrote with a bit of sarcasm - but Norwegians aren't afraid to differentiate "Real Norwegians" from Nouveau Norge. They know what their culture is, and how much they don't want it to change from the outside.
Thank You!
I assume that YOU are white supremacist. You didn’t cite any African Asian or South American nations. WHITENESS on your mind.
"Culture can be defined as a "systematic, integrated pattern for living"
China is not an European nation but Chinese, are all of the same culture. It was successful countries with the same cultures that I was bringing to your attention. YOU Superimposed Supremacy.
There are many failing single cultured countries and perhaps it is due to the CULTURE itself. It is not our duty to subsidize all the failing countries or transplant them here and hope they grow, cause that's obviously not working. And it has nothing to do with "THE WHITE BOOGIE MAN". The US has created the playing field but it has rules. One of the oldest is SELFSUFFICIENCY.
Massachusetts in 1700 kept out the infirm and disabled who had no security against becoming public charges. The law required ship captains to post bonds for "lame, impotent, or infirm" passengers who were "incapable of maintaining themselves." The bond requirement sought to prevent the new arrival from becoming reliant on public relief. Without a bond from the captain, the vessel had to return the person to his home country.
In the 19th century, before the existence of a federal agency responsible for immigration policies, eastern seaboard states such as New York and Massachusetts enacted state laws that restricted the immigration of aliens deemed likely to become dependent on public institutions such as poor houses. These states also charged steamship companies a “head tax” for each foreign passenger they landed in order to defray the cost of caring for, and sometimes removing, indigent immigrants who ended-up in state-funded facilities. Ellis Island waylaid certain arrivals, including those likely to become public charges, such as unescorted women and children.
https://www.uscis.gov/about-us/our-history/history-office-and-library/our-history/public-charge-provisions-of-immigration-law-a-brief-historical-background
The rule was you can't come here till you can take care of yourself. And that's what made all the White Supremacist Countries SUCCESSFUL.
So because they come to the US from failing countries/cultures to the US and fail also they are not Supremacists? What are they besides diverse?
Are you stepping out on me? Calling others "psychotic troll"? Why you cheap...You can just forget about that lunch date, buster!
LOL thanks bud!
SHUT IT
STFU
This blathering idiocy is exactly what threatens our country at this point. The current “cultural revolution” is the antithesis of freedom and progress, and will be the undoing of all of the work that has come before it. Your erratic and overly emotional, shaming tone speaks volumes about this “movement”. Perhaps there is hope, however, if you are, in fact, a representative of this illiberal takeover, in that you seem to have some instances where you still believe in free speech. But I’m not banking on it. I’m counting on those who still fully believe in the utility of free speech and the incredible dangers of censorship. Matt Taibbi, you are an absolute gem, many thanks to you, sir.
This is no cultish revolution you right wing Nazi.
SHADDUP
The real villain(s) here is George Bridges the school president, and by extension any school administration official who participated in the decision to fire Weinstein. I hesitate to trot out an Obama injunction, "a teachable moment," but if ever there was a teachable moment, it would seem to be here. At an institution of higher learning no less. Bridges could have diffused the controversy. Bridges should have diffused the controversy. By calling timeout. Take a breather.
And then quickly meeting with both the students and Weinstein separately. And then suggesting that both parties meet together to share their thoughts and positions. A discussion that the administration would be happy to organize. Steps such as these should have at least been attempted. And finally, we're surely not privy to the entirety of the administrative debate or rationales that resulted in Weinsteins firing. Assuming a debate even happened. A public version exists, yes, but this is academia. And the $500,000 settlement doesn't speak volumes, but it says something.
You are so, so right. The administration, in this case, didn't just fumble the ball. They threw the series.
Whenever I read Taleb it always sounds as if he's discussing the lint he can't remove from his navel.
Time to amend. A previous comment of mine. Regarding the Weinstein firing. Weinstein's former colleague, Peter Dorman, has said some interesting things since Professor Ivermectin got himself pink-slipped out in the pacific northwest---fairly or unfairly. I've read a lot about this over the past week or so. I suggest the firing had a bit more complexity to it than the tale that played out in the media. Briefly, that Weinstein's firing owed as much to the usual petty feuds, power machinations, and political intrigue that occur at regular intervals on all college campuses between the college brethren, than it did to any other factor. (see Mary McCarthy's "The Groves of Academe").
That certain "elements," perhaps a "posse" of influential elements, from both the Evergreen faculty, administration and alumni, might have been circling for Weinstein's scalp long before he was actually fired. And that the posse saw their chance during The Great Woke Uprising and made their move. It wasn't necessarily an instance of an untenured professor being fired for speaking his mind---exercising his 1st amendment rights if you must---but an instance of a powerful group who wanted, for any number of reasons, Weinstein gone. From campus. For good. And they certainly had to have weighed all the events taking place on campus and in the media, and surely knew that by actually getting rid of Weinstein at that particular moment would create an even bigger shit storm in all corners---which eventually it certainly did.
In other words, the Evergreen State consensus was that let's get rid of him now, damn the blowback over the 1st amendment stuff, the blowback will blow over, this is America, everybody forgets everything sooner rather than later, and we'll never have an opportunity like this one again to get rid of the son-of-a- bitch, and besides, the alumni donors. Reasons they weren't about to share publicly. I would gather they even factored in the half-mil payout they'd have to shell out later for Weinstein's controversial dismissal, before actually firing him. Perhaps an anonymous donor who also agreed that it was in Evergreen's interest to issue Weinstein his walking papers, came forward, or snuck in the back door, with the half-mil. This stuff happens more often than most people think on America's campuses.
I suspect too that the true masters were moneyed puppeteers, as they always are, the ones who write the checks---wealthy alumni donors. Probably not a lot of them showering money on a school like Evergreen State, but enough of them to matter. And the "posse," the university hierarchy, felt that in the long run appeasing the funders and givers would be the priority. Whatever else this was, it was bad PR for Evergreen State. Important to keep in mind that most colleges today are in a precarious financial state, and have been for the last decade or more---especially small, unorthodox liberal arts schools with Evergreen State's profile.
Didn't F. Scott Fitzgerald once remark, "the Evergreen State alumni---they aren't like you and me?" This is all conjecture of course, which is always an amusing exercise. Of course, if any of this is accurate some would argue it makes the firing even more insidious. And how do we know what Weinstein's motivations were, his motivations for taking the stances and saying the things that he did? We don't. We know what he says, and that is all.
But reading Dorman's comments led me to this conjecture. Through his comments, I feel that Dormand is more than sufficiently believable, that his studied disinterest in the entire affair was genuine, and that he maintains a sincere belief that none of this was good for anybody. And ultimately by his summation of it all: that nobody involved--- Weinstein, Evergreen faculty and administrators, assorted students---chose, or either found, the high road on this one.
I’d say highly plausible conjecture. The entire affair has the distinct aroma of small minded academia. .
STFU
Gutterdandy: by the way, I'm receiving your replies to e.pierce. Good to see someone else policing him up, though. I actually find it perversely amusing. PSYCHOTIC TROLL!
Sorry 'bout that Latouche!
SHUT IT!
I still think you and I should collaborate on a screenplay. Think about it.
SHADDUP
brutalize....?
I can't speak to the accuracy of your opinion on the college incident and aftermath. But I can speak to how Mr. Weinstein's presentation of COVID data, differing opinions, and openness to following the facts where they lead: he does that in a way that unites people toward the truth, as opposed to how you divide folks by calling him names about something that, likely, you were not a party to.
Why do folks that talk about racial injustice always scream and call people names? You didn't give any facts to back your attack on him, just screamed and called names.
You want to convince us? Be respectful and lay out the facts. If you do that, we'll see it. And it likely will impact our interpretations.
Do you have a quote from Johnson about screaming and name-calling you can apply to yourself?
Your points are important. I just wish you'd provided something to back them up so I could add them to the information I do know. But, you screamed instead of reasoned... please try again.
You are obviously a paid troll.
You are obviously an unpaid prick.
World class response. Concise and eloquent.
I wasn’t aware that Brett brutalized anyone?
And I’m sorry, but people lose their right to be respectfully heard out when they form a mob and shout someone down for disagreeing with them. Had they behaved like adults and met with Brett in a calm manner to discuss their grievances, that would be one thing. But they didn’t. They mobbed him, threatened him for not complying, and then literally held the Admins hostage until they agreed to fire him. You don’t capitulate to mobs that use force, and involuntarily detaining people until they meet your demands is FORCE. You also don’t force anyone to not go somewhere, and make no mistake, threatening someone with the possibility of mob “justice” is using force.
The fact that people pretend like these brats have a right to act like brats when this behavior wouldn’t be tolerated coming from any other group is exactly why they continue to behave this way. Now we are in a situation where good journalists with integrity like MT has to use a private platform and certain lines of inquiry are off limits. And this is all because people capitulated to these brats, these brats became older, and now we have brats with influence controlling our institutions.
You are so right!!
I don't agree with all you're saying, but at base, you're correct that it would have been the smart move to STFU and listen. What you describe could be expanded to American "higher" education in general. It's a clerisy of entitled creeps.
I totally disagree. Being quiet would have validated their belief that debate is meaningless. Listen, yes, but you don’t stay quiet when people who’ve never met you scream that you’re a racist and demand your resignation.
Amen to that disagreement.
Part of adhering to this new “movement” means shutting up and never speaking your mind, which is just totally bonkers chilling totalitarianism. I can’t believe someone (who likely fancies themself a leftist) could still comment - after all we’ve seen in the last 4 years - that “Weinstein could have kept his job if he’d have just kept his mouth shut.”
My thought on this for quite a while is that the only way to defeat this pack of phony revolutionaries and spoiled, lazy (usually rich) kids who’ve commandeered media and left political spaces via advancing whining techniques is to call them what they are: the new reactionary right wing. Constantly tarring them as “far left” or “hard socialist” won’t work, because they think it’s really sexy. It’s constantly validating them with ultimately incorrect terminology.
You judgemental defensive moron. I did NOT say that you fucking daft Trumpist clone of the alleged Left.
Your reading comprehension is piss poor.
Listening is totally undervalued in this civilization … and so is reading comprehension. Your terministic screen is showing.
My comment was NOT about Weinstein keeping his job. Fuck his job. He clearly did not want to keep his job as much as he failed to listen and consider viewpoints other than his closed rigid theological belief system … appropriate for a gif on Earth.
RE:Weinstein could have kept his job if he’d have just kept his mouth shut.”
You're ad hominem attacks invalidate the rest of your argument.
@Thom Prentice (not you, Daren - agreeing with you 100%):
Standard leftist "debate" strategy these days:
Lefty: "Blah-blah-blah! You agree, right?"
Target: "Not exactly. Your suggested strategy hasn't worked lately."
Lefty: "You're an idiot, defensive, brain-dead moron on crack!"
Bullying people into submission only works for a while. Clock's up on that now after 20+ yrs of it. We see what you've created, and we're not having any of it.
Too many F words. Didn’t bother to read the rest of the retort.
"He clearly did not want to keep his job as much as he failed to listen and consider viewpoints other than his closed rigid theological belief system … appropriate for a gif on Earth."
What? How do you know that he didn't listen? How do you know that he didn't consider the others' viewpoints? Be very, very specific about the actual events.
Also, he said Weinstein “brutalized” the students. It’s been awhile since I read an account of that episode, but that doesn’t ring a bell.
Judgmental, huh?
What an angry little man you are. Fucking hell dude
god on Earth
dude. valium.
Are a real person? I find it hard to believe that you are?
Yes you are e. pierce, you depraved freak.
I am not advocating "shutting up and never speaking your mind" in any way. And, the thing about "...could have kept his job if he'd just kept his mouth shut" isn't at all what I'm talking about. Anyone kissing ass to keep their job deserves to get smacked. I'm advocating being smarter about how one pushes back, and understanding timing.
I said this somewhere else last night...it's not a bag race where the winner is determined by a single event. Jumping up and pushing back immediately isn't always the right move, and of course, specific actions depend on a multitude of variables.
I was responding to Mr. Prentice as much as you, but you both seem to literally be advocating for the “words are violence” and “silence is deafening (but you can only publicly agree with me or we’re back to violence)” part of this regressive movement, which I radically disagree with. (Dislike Weinstein if you like, but he was deeply wronged in that Evergreen situation, and I’d call the spoiled, lazy and angry zoomlinneals the actual new “clerisy” in that situation and all others.)
There’s nothing left (or “left”) of this New Left worth salvaging.
Flush it and start over.
I've noticed that the deployment of the word "clerisy" has become somewhat fashionable on these boards. Used somewhat indiscriminately, primarily to describe a group of people that the commenter has taken issue with or otherwise harbors a deep antipathy towards.
The definition of "clerisy: ".....a distinct class of learned or literary people...."
May seem harmless, but throughout history it has been a hallmark of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in times of unrest to identify the members of the "clerisy," accuse them of crimes against the state---thought crimes---and subtly turn them into scapegoats for the ills that beset the state.
Show trials were produced, sentences handed out, exile or execution quickly followed. Stalin turned it into an art form. "Words of violence" can often be very subtle.
Your reading comprehension is piss poor.
Wow. I was never advocating that, and I pretty much agree with everything else you said. I do think Weinstein was/is a dork, and I don't like or dislike him; he simply is a guy trying to do what he believes. I also think he was wildly wronged in the university and Youtube issues.
If I was advocating for anything (I don't think I was actively advocating, just suggesting strategy and tactics), it would be to approach the thing in a smarter fashion. His actions didn't and don't seem to be working out for him in anything, and no amount of moral indignation and shouting is going to get him anything.
I'll go along with this.
I could never agree with that sort of rhetoric towards anyone. Using childish tactics to respond to childish tactics won’t create an adult situation. (And answering anger politics with anger politics is what got us into this mess. See: Hate, Inc.)
If anyone here hasn’t seen or listened to it, this wonderful discussion between the brilliant black conservative Glenn Loury and the brilliant black democratic socialist Cornel West is heartening: here are two passionate, fiery, stubbornly opinionated and wildly educated men treating each other as metaphorical and literal brothers, while waxing deeply philosophical on spirituality, politics, Russian literature, John Coltrane and the black American spirit. It’s wonderful and moving and I feel like the way out of our stupid morass is in here somewhere: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CXJHXHOH844
We need more of this: caring and compassionate - and ideologically opposed - adults trying to find common ground. (I’d pay good money for a regular West-Loury show.)
I think laughter is the best weapon. They need to be mocked.
I agree with Matt. Watch the videos of Bret's encounter with those"students". They were not interested in "being heard", they were pumped up to smack down a faculty member based on ignorance and misinformation about what the issue actually was. I've been in such gatherings myself and it is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of mob behavior - headless and thus brainless, moved by emotion that whipsaws through impressionable children and achieves nothing useful, ever.
The basic framework of bourgeois institutions is one of state power, and this includes at least accredited and credentialed institutions like universities and colleges. Hence the focus of the contending parties at Evergreen and in similar confrontations on power, in this case through shouting down and later terrorizing the opposition. This response to oppression is to become the oppressor. Obviously, you will not get rid of oppression in this way, even if you ''win''.
I suggest people try to seek out different, non-coercive modes of organization and action. I am pretty sure you won't find them in corporations and other state institutions, although you may have to sneak through their corridors for awhile to survive. Ultimately, you do have the power to do something different.
I like that. I like that a lot. It gets much closer to what I'm trying to say than anything I've said. So much of what we're yakking about is just more noise, masquerading as thoughtfulness and intelligence. The story is much bigger than the stories we're presented. While all of it does not take the form of what current hipdom considers a hot take, it all feels like a hot take to me. We'll know what happened in several years, and all prestidigitation disguised as news...is noise.
I still enjoy it though. MT's joint is righteous.
Weinstein is a one man mob.
STFU
AKA go down swinging.
Sure, that's what some folks think is honorable, and maybe it is, but I'd rather not go down. Sometimes, often in fact, that means taking a short term hit. Weinstein was dumb on multiple counts. His underlying situation is admirable, but he's a dumbshit. He could've played this a dozen ways from Sunday and come out on the right side of it. As it is, he's going down swinging, which is a fools errand.
In your focus on “strategy,” you appear to embrace the students’ reduction of the situation to power plays. In a battle for power for power’s sake, truth, fairness, due process, are kicked to the curb. They have no value, only power has value. Weinstein attempted to make this point to Congress. I have generally heard strategy touted as an excuse for the abandonment of principles. What’s the goal here? To keep one’s job? At what cost? What perplexes me most about these altercations is to hear the advocates of censorship and bullying described regularly and elsewhere, even in a lot of alternative media, as “progressive” and even “left.” This, and the embrace by so-called progressives of the CIA, FBI and NSA is reminiscent of John Birchers in the 50’s. These are right-wing perspectives and tactics. As Orwell warned, one of the places we should start if we value democracy is to call things by their proper names.
Terms like 'Left' and 'Right' have been emptied of meaning, as I've complained elsewhere. One result of this process seems to be that the historical principles of the Left cannot be named and thus cannot be discussed or transmitted. Hence the goddess TINA rules.
Well, you're kinda all over the place with this one. There's a bit of cross connected straw man morphed into philosophical meandering. Strategy can easily be described as abandonment of principle, except when it's not and one understand time and it's benefits.
Not that I want to go all in on this, but what the heck... I've spent a few years in China, a lot of it in rural areas studying the tactics of He Long and his army in their retreat through Yesanguan and Dacun, talking to the locals, and working to understand strategies I'm not familiar with. In short, I think about this stuff in entirely different ways than I did years ago. And no, I'm not in thrall to the Commies or any ideological component of their fight, but I learned some things I'd not considered because I'd not been exposed to them.
All the stuff you said...sure. It all makes sense a lot of the time, maybe all the time, until it doesn't because someone is not playing the game by the rules you imagine apply. If I am unprincipled, OK, sure, but it's the same thing. You imagine a limited number, or even a single, principle applies, except it/they don't.
Sorry for sounding obtuse, but it's a big world and the debate is limited only by someone's perceptions. I propose perceptions here are short, inaccurate, or something worse.
I meant to say, “regularly in the NYT and elsewhere in the mainstream media.”
I agree that rope-a-dope is the right way to play a lot of the time, but not when the rope is around your neck.
I like that. The Champ was righteous.
I guess I didn't see a rope around his neck when it was unfolding; he should have recognized he was at a supreme disadvantage, however unjust his situation was, and it certainly was. He sure has one on his neck now, seriously constraining or eliminating options. Options are survival; if you can find and maintain them, probabilities shift in your favor.
There's no knowing how shit will play out, but playing for time can avert a lot of negative possibilities.
STFU RIGHT NOW
Amen
The only way to defeat a bully is to fight back. Verbal bullying is no different than physical.
Just look at Trump and DeSantis and MTG... and the *theater* that Lindsey Graham generates (he doesn't mean what he says, but he does push back).
America has to fight back on these unAmerican attacks. Being polite and listening for 30+ yrs is what got us into this Hell hole.
Yes, you have to stand up to a bully. Letting the most silly and destructive ideas float into the forefront of mainstream thought unchallenged is indeed one of the primary things that’s plagued us.
Fighting a bully by bullying them in return just goes nowhere, which is an important distinction I think.
Matt it was not about debate. It was about listening. He didn’t. He was graceless feckless and an unwiped asshole. Yet his views on Covid should not be censored.
Matt, this is a nonstarter and asks the question of whether you can walk and chew gum at the same time?
STFU
Well, I understand, but IF I was that situation, which I never would be, I would have been thinking strategically. You're still a youngster, and you imagine to the best response in all situations is to immediately stand up and push back is the right thing to do, which it is, but pushing back when all tactical advantage is not in your favor...is really dumb.
I love you because you (figuratively and sometimes literally) yell at the injustices and stupidities of the world in ways that cherish, but your total lack of a strategy reveals you got a lot to learn. It may be that the fact your paycheck is directly tied to your ability to get up and yell at first blush has clouded your judgment.
Winning the race doesn't mean you lead every lap. It might, but it often means you wait for someone to burn up, or reveal a weakness, or....oh fuck it...I'm not good at the allegories. I still believe the smart move would be to STFU, keep your powder dry, and wait for the mopes to stumble. Then, I'd be up their ass with a flamethrower.
And from what little I've seen and know about the situation, those morons would have presented about a million opportunities to push it all back up their ass until their eyes popped.
You should watch the video of the student mob going after Bret, and however much more of the story you can. Your stratagy won't work.
I've watched it multiple times. I sat and watched, stupefied, that the idiot couldn't recognize his situation, which was nothing but disadvantaged.
Looking back on it now, in the context of cancel culture, woke politics and ever creeping critical theory into the mainstream, perhaps it seems obvious that Bret was faced with a hopeless situation at Evergreen. These forces had not gained the prominence they have today when Evergreen broke down though; for many, hearing about the fiasco Bret and Heather went through was an alarm bell that people could hardly believe was ringing. I'd wager the instinct of most liberal leaning people at that time would be to try to explain perspectives in a civilized manner, and, perhaps foolishly, expect the same courtesy in return.
OK, please excuse all the obvious typos and obvious grammatical fuckups. It's late, I'm over caffeinated, and not proof reading adequately.
No worries mate, your communication skills were up to the task.
I just disagree. :)
Yeah, it's all just comments section meandering. Which made me think more about conflict....
One's gotta be really careful nowadays, in our new world of everyone packing and thousands of youngsters highly skilled in MMA...where some unassuming looking kid can take down someone outweighing then by a hundred pounds and punch their lights out. I've seen it happen. Strategy should consider that the other side may be that 134 pounder that can take you down, and your principles don't mean shit.
It ain't a bag race. It's not 1000 meter sprint. It's not even a marathon. This shit we're talking about, you might run til you die.
How 'bout No. Geeesh. Maybe they're just confused and angry 19-year olds, of the Evergreen State variety, and in the good professor saw a guy who was asking for it one way or another. A little ideological skirmish between pupil and professor is what they built the academy for.
The students? Obnoxious as hell, yes, but giv'em a little space and in four years they'll be heading off to do PR for Apple and running the coffee shops of Portland. You make it sound as though they're an unruly gagggle of uninvited visigoths, ready to give America the business end of a three-ball flail. "Their currency is raw power and their only goal domination." No, unintelligible critical theory is their currency and their goal is to graduate without suffering a nervous breakdown.
"They are not themselves capable, or willing to listen." You just described 95% of America.
"They have zero respect for themselves and the society in which they live, and hence have no respect for us, our shared history, and institutions."
I really think what you're saying here is that YOU have zero respect for THEM. And the society in which they live? Perhaps they see it as a society which could use a drastic overhaul of sorts, and that overhaul will be noisy, messy, and there will be some hurt feelings involved---and being excitable 19-year olds, full of books and brimstone, they can be expected to go about this project in a decidedly half-ass manner.
The last sentence is a chicken dinner winner...."no respect for us, our shared history, and institutions." I'm on to your tells---US. Who be us? Probably not any us's I know, I imagine. But I must say, at first reading, the sonorous, soporific cadence of your prose style ingeniously masks a sort of cultural ruthlessness at work. I'm impressed.
I just reread this...it's great. Methinks you're intimately familiar with the intersection of youth, erudition, administrative incompetence, contrapuntal finagling, and the finer points of contemporary university life. My admiration and condolences to you...
How can one be classified as a "troll" on a site where a majority of commenters are trolls themselves? Tk is a cesspool of trolls. You're near the top of the list. I recall a few weeks ago when a first time commenter here at TK, who claimed he was European, in a thread about Ivermectin, was flabbergasted at the abject inaccuracy of most of the comments on the subject at hand. He picked up on it in five minutes. He wondered if it was a case of trollery, laziness, stupidity, propaganda, or merely an attitude of "can't be bothered." But then he's European. A continent of known "radical extremists on the far left." Gaslighter indeed.
But I gots me one thing going that the other trolls here don't have workin' for them: "Psychotic" troll. Unbalanced. Loose cannon. Sworn opponent of propagandists everywhere. A virtuous cynic. Like Lloyd Blankfein and Savonarola, I'm doing god's work, with a touch of "old scratch" thrown in. See you in the murky depths...
The counterpoint to some of the talking points made by defenders of the Evergreen students: https://thefederalist.com/2018/06/18/left-denial-blames-evergreens-bat-wielding-student-mobs-professor-opposed-racism/
It's mildly amazing there even needs to be a counterpoint to this sordid mess. The failure of Evergreen administration, and the fact that universities nationwide didn't coalesce into some visible and apparent condemnation of the students and support for Weinstein only increases my feeling that the current university environment is a swamp.
But, thanks for posting.
You are welcome. Yep, it must be very eerie to be a student these days, constantly walking around on eggshells lest you upset some random classmate (or prof!). That has to be a very bad thing.
Glad I no longer have to worry about it.
Thanks, it's useful to read. At some short point I have to be amazed there even needs to be a counterpoint. The failure of Evergreen administration from the Prez on down approaches criminality, and the fact that universities across the country haven't coalesced to provide visible and apparent support for Weinstein and condemnation for the bat wielding morons only deepens my feeling that the current university environment is a swamp of stupidity. That the entire mess seems to be getting adjudicated on Twitter, MSM/Fox/MSNBC, and in editorial comments sections confirms (to me anyway) the vapidity of the entire mess.
It may be that Weinstein really is a lovely albeit hapless dupe of powers vastly beyond his own. But, he didn't seem to play this in the manner I would imagine someone of his erudition would. It was a fumbling clusterfuck from the beginning and we're apparently nowhere near the end of it, although I can just as easily imagine this sliding out of the zeitgeist because the ZG requires constant feeding and leftovers isn't what gets clicks.
Hate, Inc. and it's premise could be applied to all of this, no?
It is a clerestory of entitled tenured corporate and billionaire funded priests .Where are all the Marxist professors in the business schools of Harvard, Yale , Chicago, Stanford Princeton utexas ucla etc?
Where I ask ye, WHERE?
GO AHEAD AND JUMP
How often do you beat your wife?
He “brutalized” the 50 students? Jesus dude. You’re not living in reality. He might be a little arrogant but beyond that, the idea that he had “power” over them dilutes the meaning of the word to be meaningless.
Is it physically painful to be as out of touch with reality as you are?