Now in the US we have what Gad Saad describes as "intellectual terrorists flying airplanes of bullshit into our towers of rational thought." We have a cultural revolution going on in this country that has to pay lip service to democracy and freedom while under-cutting it. The woke don't want equality they want to flip the old order on it's head. It's about power, retribution, and censoring anything even remotely resembling western culture. Eliminating Dr. Sues books is just a start. Call it silly or inconsequential at your own peril.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the entertainment company that manages the late writer’s estate, has decided to stop publishing six of Geisel’s books that feature racist and insensitive imagery. They include: “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” “If I Ran the Zoo,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!,” and “The Cat’s Quizzer.” Now that everybody is buying Dr. Seuss books, they are making lots of money. Hilarious. Culture wars sucks on both sides!
Please list the Dr. Seuss books that got eliminated. When you say eliminated, are they illegal to print or buy or borrow or sell? I've not followed this story and am curious what your understand of it is.
The Suess estate cancelled the publications of six books it identified as racist, and Amazon in turn banned the sale of these books (both new and used). Amazon sells close to 90% of the books in the country.
Part of the problem is that Amazon banned the six Suess books while still allowing books like Hitler's Mein kampf to be sold on their platform....
Historico-personal anecdote. When I was still in high school and already leaning far left I decided I wanted to know what was what with Hitler so I went to our wonderful old Carnegie library and took Mein Kampf (in English) off the shelf. The librarian would not let me check the book out without a note from my parents, which I got soon after.
Around the same time I tried to check out a big fat red-covered book called, I think, The Bolsheviks. Ditto on the no checkout without a note. Only this time I had to get one from a teacher as well.
I suspect the real problem Murcan "liberals" are having with Seuss is his role in anti-Vietnam protest back in the days when Marcuse stalked the good ol' boys and no one wanted a beer with that Kraut.
I remember very little of what ended up being a partial reading that IIRC reminded me a little of the excessive ranting of Ayn Rand, who was also on the reading list of every dedicated working class teen intellect in those dark days.
I am not a credentialed mental health professional, but I speculate that both Hitler and Rand were somewhere on the autism spectrum. I think it comes across in their writing.
Autists sometimes muster their energies into changing the world.
It's insulting to Ayn Rand to compare the two, as Ayn Rand's books were at least readable from cover to cover without thoughts of suicide, but they have certain strains of rant in common, I agree.
The real problem is that the six canceled Seuss books should have passed into the public domain decades ago except for the efforts of Sonny Bono and the rest of the MAFIAA lobbyists. Then, someone else could publish these very old books. So f you want to attack something here, attack that.
I am a bad person but I still find Sonny Bono's death from crashing into a tree at high speed extremely comical. I imagine it happening like an old Friz Freleng cartoon.
Ah, I get it. I don't see the problem. Amazon and the publisher are private companies and can do as they please. I have bigger problems with Amazon than not selling particular books. We all have bigger problems with Amazon.
They can do it, but that doesn't make it right. Ebay also banned them. FB marketplace and CL haven't yet, so at least we can still meet up furtively in a dark parking lot and exchange crumpled bills for children's books. I read and reread far worse depictions of indigenous people in the Tin Tin books when I was a kid and turned out just fine. How long until the censors come calling for them? If all a kid has the option of reading is white bread and bologna "Anti-racist Baby" books, then they'll most likely just turn to mind-numbing iPad games instead. But maybe that's the idea.
FB and CL are dark alley transactions? I sold a few cars on CL and never had that sense from it. I mean... I get the issue here but this isn't the hill to die on. The publisher- the one who profits from the sale of this product- agrees with the critics. I'm with you on the broader problems of cancel culture and it's ridiculous affects on free speech, but this ain't that. Fire example,
The publisher's typically generic statement and accompanying decision is probably less about agreement and more about a calculated compromise that they believe will ensure maximum continued profitability. Which is why pushback is important - because if other publishers see a fallout not accompanied by an increase in profits then maybe they'll make a different decision when the mob comes for their books.
I don't want my children to grow up in a world where they can't read Tin Tin for fear that reading an actual stereotype rather than reading Ibram X Kendi's stereotype of a stereotype will irreparably warp their fragile young mind. I got an incredible amount of creative ideas from the series as a child, and a racist mindset did not accompany.
The dark alley transaction was a joke, sort of, although that is the apparent trajectory. Even now, probably almost half the country would frown less on a transaction involving counterfeit goods than they would on buying a Dr Suess book. I have had some sketchy experiences but they were usually in rough parts of town while traveling.
For example, the attempts at cancelling jk rowling were gross and ignorant. That's what should be criticized. And I don't even like harry potter movies.
Shocking! Good thing nothing like that could ever happen in the U.S.!
"If it were possible for any nation to fathom another people’s bitter experience through a book, how much easier its future fate would become and how many calamities and mistakes it could avoid. But it is very difficult. There always is this fallacious belief: ‘It would not be the same here; here such things are impossible.’ Alas, all the evil of the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth."
Thank you for this outstanding warning. It is now obvious that we have now entered a new phase -- beyond "just" chronic bi-partisan corruption. Direct attack on freedom of speech and publishers are no longer limited to publisher Julian Assange -- although silence by Democrat politicians and corporate media was deafening. Even once independent TYT and The Intercept have been coopted, i.e., corrupted, and actively participate in defamation of Julian Assange.
However, the recent letter by two California House "lifers" and useless Democrats Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney to CEO's of cable companies are truly unparalleled and represents the rise of fascism in the US -- under a guise of "fighting fascism." All these multiple attacks are clearly carefully choreographed and coordinated -- easily predicted and well understood since we should always keep in mind that there is one huge elephant in the room:
The scam of the century - the now 5-year long Russia-gate hoax initiated by Obama/Biden administration
The Russia-gate hoax and two-impeachment “entertainments” were concocted by Obama/Hillary/Biden/Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Maxine Waters, Jamie Ruskin, etc., etc. -- and their intelligence and DNC executives on behalf of their Wall Street and military and security industry donors, i.e., the War party
By far the absolutely highest need of Biden government and its DNC oligarch cabal is that Russia-gate immense hoax – the scam of the century -- will NOT / will NEVER be exposed. This represents an entirely new phase of US domestic politics -- of course, on foreign policy oligarchs of both parties are united.
Hence immense obligations to primary propagandists for their roles, including despicable Kamala Harris (Hillary’s protégé), Neera Tanden, Melissa Hodgman (wife of the Comey’s infamous Peter Strzok), Pete Buttigieg, etc, and to media executives.
The question is perhaps: Who will be the first Democrat Congressman or Senator to publicly confirm the Russia-gate conspiracy? There is absolutely no "unity and healing" until that...
Trump’s utter incompetence in handling Covid-19 created the human and economic catastrophe that should enter US history named as - Trump-virus. He brought into government religious extremism and racism. The next "Trump" will be more competent and more dangerous.
Democrats are now introducing extreme measures -- massive censorship and silencing of opponents. This is a sure sign of utter desperation of DNC corrupt and sclerotic leadership and its defeat and obliteration in next (including midterm) elections
Biden and Harris have a real mess to clean up -- their job, which we, the public, are paying them to do -- but based on the past track record of both I think their strategy will be to blame the victims of the mess for the mess.
So far they're making a mess out of something that didn't need to be cleaned up, and ignoring what does need to be cleaned up. Look at the growing migrant problem on the border, for example.
The Biden administration is very young but so far everything they've done or said has only entrenched the bitter divide in the country. Even Bill Clinton knew better than to call state governors (and by extension, their supporters) neanderthals. It makes you wonder if the administration is really that clueless or simply does not care for half the country that didn't vote for them? I daresay it's the latter. And I suspect it's not that they don't care, they intensely dislike the half of America that didn't vote for them and have no sincere interest in any kind of unity or consensus or compromise.
The DC DNC zombies are unable to stop stepping in the same cow pie; they openly derogate the average working citizen who wasn't "smart" enough to become a politician or a Wall Streeter.
We're gonna get "Make Neanderthalia Great Again" in '22 and/or '24. I should find a salon that specializes in sloping your brow.
The Ds, along with the Rs, are 2 factions of the Amer political mafia - their "disputes" are fights over territory (the US), not over how to advance the welfare of the people, so they can pillage, plunder, and pollute at will, but as long as they periodically offer ice-cream socials in the park on the weekends, or, in the common parlance, bread (a little) and circuses, (memorials for the "fallen") - we the people, for decades, have decided that LOTE is the best we can do, so we pick which one offers the better ice-cream - which melts as soon as the election is over -
I have been hoping and praying (yeah, I still do that, WTF, may not help, but couldn't hoit, as they say) for decades that folks would catch on - periodically I see a few glimmers ... how long will it take for us to decide to "throw the bums out" (as Stein, the GP Pres nominee in '12 and '16, said), and do we have time before Mother Nature decides to whack us for good - I do not know ...
So far I have not seen that our LOTE pick this time will offer any more than a few licks on the cone ...
You said this way better than I could except for: trump mishandling the virus- he was backed into a corner with the browbeating/bleating 24/7 media fearmongering; the dems collusion with china to use the virus-scam to crush dissent & trump-they don't care who gets hurt in the process. Don't get me wrong- I consider trump incompetent only accurately hitting many, not all, of the very real and serious concerns of many Americans but he is a con man. Yes the next trump might be competent thus dangerous.
You are getting close to the truth but not quite. Trump had no "con" in forgoing a gorgeous life and taking the presidency while donating the check. I'm wondering if there is a personal reason why you need to call him that, because clearly there was no personal profit motive despite the mainstream media's endless blathering on that there was.
Donald Trump 'wants FDA to approve oleander plant extract as a drug to cure Covid-19' after it was promoted by Ben Carson (the Bible-idiot --: Egyptian pyramids were built by St. Joseph to store eheat")and MyPillow founder - despite no proof that it works
• Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow boss Mike Lindell, a big Trump supporter, have urged Trump to look at the botanical extract
• Meeting arranged by the pair with a director at company developing the product
• Andrew Whitney, of Phoenix Biotechnology, claims he is '100%' sure it's a cure
• But there is no peer-reviewed study to support the claim
• Lindell says that in the meeting, Trump 'basically said the FDA should approve it'
• Senior administration official expressed deep concern that Carson and Lindell were 'pushing a dubious product at the highest levels' during the pandemic
Remember that part wherein they all bad mouthed HCQ? Even had their journals publish rubbish about it (one later retracted). All, it seems because Trump had touted it (or maybe it was the profit motive behind the upcoming vaccines).
Turns out it's so effective, no vaccine is even necessary. 65 years in use across the globe and inexpensive.
I know nothing about your drug, but your response looks much like the indignant spin we saw around HCQ.
I’ll grant that Trump played a bit fast and loose w/ FDA prig types. That said, I like an aggressive approach and encouragement with the vaccines and treatment options. I saw this as a sign of positivity-proactive as opposed to reactive science. I’ll take medicine hawking over basement hiding as a PR strategy for the pandemic any day of the week and 2x on Sunday. Maybe it’s my Sagittarius nature-I’m supposed to think like this.
Trump, in a rally in NH before the '16 R primaries, said that he could make a lot more money "out there" - so why did he want to be Pres - because he wanted to be "the most powerful man in the world"
It was/is for him about power - not about people or principle or even personal profit, but about personal Power, that, I would think, was clear from the way he governed - and it was clear he would do whatever he could to hold on to it for as long as he could ...
You are absorbing a false media narrative that has only assumption to support it.
How about considering what the man said? That he saw the results of the globalists interests having stripped America of jobs and money for over 40 years, and wanted to save us from the complete disaster that they are now resuming course towards post-haste.
Why would you believe that the several tens of millions of Americans who support Trump are personally invested in his or anyone else's egotistical dreams. You have so bought into the demeaning of the man and especially of his "deplorable" supporters that you have dismissed the very real possibility that what they see is a man who wanted to give back to his and their country. And he certainly made huge sacrifices in his attempts to do so.
Millions of not-as-stupid-as-you-have-blindly-believed Americans saw that what Trump wanted for this country aligned with their own desires, for themselves and for their families, and that what Trump hoped to cure was the corruption that pervades every corner of our government and has DISSOLVED the American middle class dream. And it's not just the normal money-shifting kind of corruption, but corruption that was and is leading to the destruction of American independence and the sovereignty of We The People.
Send ANY human being in to halt this demise and you will get a very similar response to the one that Trump got. And the media, Hollywood and all other globalist interests would launch the same attacks. Any many who believe their state-run nightly-news will buy into the villainization.
But the biggest problem we face now is election fraud, because should 100% of American citizens come to the realization that their country is being slid out from under them, we could still do nothing about it because our election machinery is now corrupt - BY DESIGN. And they are now passing laws to cement their corruption.
Does that at least open your mind to what might be going on in Myanmar?
Agree, except not so sure about "the dems collusion with China to use the virus-scam to crush dissent & trump". Fauci had outsourced much of the corona research to Wuhan once research was terminated at Ft. Detrick which has an unsavory history of bio-warfare. I doubt that China's central government would collude if they knew of the consequences.https://aarclibrary.org/the-mind-blowing-history-at-fort-detrick/
Collaboration in research with Wuhan lab is laudatory and has been going for years.
In desperation, the incompetent con artist Trump attacked China which provided the entire DNA structure of Covid-19 virus to the entire world already in early January.
The research cooperation is well known and laudatory -- goole search on Dr. Fauci beyond demanding citation... -- with a bit of practice you can easily do your own research ;-))
"And I’m still writing things against the military coup on Facebook." How long until Facebook decides to join the arbiters of truth in Myanmar and then deletes her account, only after sharing her information with authorities. The parallels to a military junta in Myanmar and the US police state are chilling.
Most chilling words from Shinn: "the strongest hopeless feeling in my life." Thank you Emily and Matt for illuminating this repression as we sit in comfy tilting office chairs with pricey herbal tea, fuming about a crappy local mayor with a team nearly the size of the White House staff, bus route overseers earning $250K on the public dole despite few customers, or an honest ethics commission whose hands are tied amidst a massive FBI corruption probe. I disagree with a comment earlier that we are not so different from Myanmar. We let things happen. A big difference.
Seems like there are a lot of places around the globe showing their true natures.
I think the term to explain it is "coercive isomorphism". Parallel processes that are contagious and feed off of one another; paradoxes stunting real progress. William Blum's Killing Hope chronicles the start of this and more recent work by Vincent Bevins' Jakarta Method closes the circle upon coups, regime changes, and political theatre of military power.
Military is not the last hope of the people. They are owned by the elite class. What planet do you live on -- just about every mass human right crime of the past century was enacted by a military class connected to capital and power.
Janine, I am not sure you know what you are talking about....
The elite class and global elite own our congress and are in the process of bankrupting us to justify handing this country over to the New World Order and the Great Reset (global monetary system). Our Supreme Court turned a blind eye to massive, result altering election fraud (admitted by Time magazine, if all the evidence wan't enough for you). Pelosi & Co. hire agitators to frame every Trump supporter in the country as a white supremacist domestic terrorist- so they can come and get Americans' guns (dems have been trying for years)(again, so we can be rolled onto the new world order). Congress just passed election laws designed to institutionalize the election fraud tactics they just used. The state and their propaganda wing have just sold American businesses and freedoms down the river for the benefit of the big-pharma investor class with the COVID Pandemic Fraud (it's only dangerous to exactly the same people who are vulnerable to flu, and the death rate for 2020 is NOT elevated). Relentlessly telling us to wear masks which science has long known do not contain viruses.
Let's see what else. ..
How many TRILLIONS (google: a billion seconds versus a trillion seconds to really get the feel for that) of "COVID" assistance has been passed in the last 6 months wherein the great majority of it is going NOT to the American people and small businesses WHO have been UNNECESSARILY shut down for a YEAR, but to overseas "causes" like "Gender Studies in Pakistan" but in actuality, will most likely 'circle back' to the US and into politicians family "Foundations" and political "Foundations" to ensure all further globalist candidates elections. Or maybe we'll be circuitously funding more violence in our own cities by way of feeding one or another activist anti-American NGO (Have you heard of Soros?).
Our media endlessly lies for the corrupt state and conceals the truth from American citizens (Tony Bobulinski, Hunter's laptop, election results, severity of Covid). The one man who really wanted to make America strong again was slashed and burned for 5 years in relentless character attacks- and condemned for not maintaining what they deemed to be a presidential enough tone in his attempts to circumvent the media (as if there were such a thing as a presidential tone, and as if he had a choice but to go around them). Many Americans still don't even know that the 3 year Mueller investigation was a complete sham/hoax. Or that Covid is completely not dangerous if your doctor isn't gagged from prescribing HCQ.)
If we don't have legitimate elections and legitimate media - which we do not, then we cannot possibly have a democratic Republic, because our politicians do not report to us and can do whatever they'd like - like what we see now.
Most people complaining about either the election fraud or the Covid lies, have been kicked off of the main social media platforms. Some of the apps that they fled to were then de-platformed. Events scheduled to discuss these issues are cancelled by social media networks - owned as you know by the "elite".
So congress is controlled by the elite, and the media is owned by the elite and communication tools censor for the elite interests, the courts have shown no interest in defending democracy, and an illegitimate President who is answering to the global elite doesn't scare you. But you think that we shouldn't hope for military help out of this mess because you think that the military is owned by the elite.
Well, that brings it full circle doesn't it?
Maybe we should just rely on a bit of grass roots campaigning for our cause.
America needs to wake up.
America is very nearly gone.
Not because it is a failed dream- as Scott Pelley and 60 Minutes just tries to convince us this evening on traitorous CBS.
But because it has been bought out from under us while we were complacently binge watching something else.
Sadly, peaceful dissent doesn't end this kind of repression. Only war or the credible threat of war can stop it. And once you concede these speech rights, they are only won back by the effusion of blood. I feel sorry for this dude, because they are going to come for him eventually, and he will suffer for everything he has written, including this interview.
It's tedious reading long threads about what Matt thinks. He's an accomplished journalist and author of many books. He can speak and write for himself.
I'd prefer to read what YOU, the commenter, think and why. Just my two cents, or one cent as the case may be.
Matt, at the risk of sounding cliché, thanks for "raising awareness" of what is going on in Myanmar. Once upon a time you could read about unrest in Third World countries with the comforting knowledge that the US is different. It is disturbing on a whole new level to see the same "anti-misinformation" campaigns of the Big Tech/Democrat/media complex being used to justify an actual coup in a foreign country. It reminds me of how the Chinese government started to frame their oppression of the Uighurs as "anti-terrorism" after 9/11.
In our country we have decided to allow a glorified shop keeper to tell us what we can say or read. Not sure that is an improvement. One can at least imagine that a country's military might have the best interests of their own country at heart. Jeff Bezos, not so much!
The "context" for Myanmar's current political situation that Matt sketches here reads like a summary of how the liberal international media has framed Burma since around 2015, when Myanmar and The Lady were vaulted into the empyrean known as "Beacon of Democracy" for S E Asia.
So what that leaves out, because what the State Department and the warmongers at Human Rights Watch consider "democracy" is sacrosanct, is considerable and worthy of attention.
The NLD, Suu Kyi's vehicle for reclaiming what is rightfully hers because her Dad was the Father of the Nation she is now called Mother to, disallowed all of its Muslim members from standing in that much-praised election.
In the most recent election, the NLD-controlled election commission denied the right of non-Burman ethnic parties to take part. These are the political parties that represent the roughly one third of Myanmar citizens who are not Bamar, the white supremacists of Burma.
The Tatmadaw has long been one of the most generally hated institutions in the world. Not long ago, while Rohingya villages burned and 750,000 people streamed into Bangladesh to escape the burning and murders and rape being committed by said Tatmadaw and local militias associated with the ethnic Rakhine, the people of Burma became very vocal, both in the streets and on FaceBook, in support of the Tatmadaw and The Lady. Please ask Zaw Moe Shin to provide evidence that he was prepared to risk his life protesting the ethnic cleansing his democracy undertook with evident glee. Then maybe I'd listen.
And this quote "the good thing about this younger generation is they don't care because they have tasted democracy. It’s really free and it's good and you can do whatever you want" is worth a howl of laughter and a little rolling around on the floor if not an attack of Blazing Saddles flatulence. The very idea that what he is calling "democracy" was free and good is suspect but the idea that anyone could do whatever they wanted in a country where you can be jailed for using imagery suggestive of the Buddha or Buddhism in the wrong social context is just disgusting.
And then there are all those problematic non-Burmans and their decades long civil wars, their displacement into camps all around Burma, and their god-awful addiction to religions like Islam and Christianity.
And just for a kicker, the same NGO-corporate media-complex that Matt trusts to provide "context" for Myanmar's political situation, started calling for FaceBook to shut down the pages and accounts of proto-fascist Buddhist organizations and members associated with Wirathu and the 969 movement. These are the kind of Burman supremacists who protest police violence one day and intermarriage between Buddhists and Muslims the next. They also actively promoted genocide/cleansing of Rohingya.
It's always good to add nuance to context. Especially when "context" means Reuters and Human Rights Watch boilerplate.
You and Zaw can both be correct. He has a pulse for broad sentiment in Myanmar — at least among the younger Burmese — that you probably do not have. So you can feel free to roll with your flatulence attack, but Zaw is just conveying what people are thinking and feeling from on the ground.
Calling his take “disgusting” while he’s actually on the ground and risking his life amid this shit show just pisses me off, frankly. He and others want democracy back. With that foundation — along with improved education and independent reporting — other reforms can happen, the types you clearly know a lot about and point out here.
Derek, you seem a bit overly emotionally invested in someone else's opinion about a foreign election. Maybe the military has stepped in to reverse a corruption, and the new election will be without fraud- thus enforcing democracy. That would be a good thing, and hardly qualifies as a coup - more an intervention.
It looks from here like election machine fraud has become a global pandemic. Democracies everywhere will benefit from a clean up. If fraud happens at a national level, to whom else can the people turn?
It would be defeatist and undemocratic to say that there is nothing people can do when an election has been stolen.
Michael, via Tun Khin (President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK) recent piece in Al Jazeera:
“...This interethnic solidarity shows what Myanmar could look like if there were no military interference. We cannot forget that during the election in 2020, many people – including the Rohingya – were effectively disenfranchised. But to reverse this process, to build an equitable society where people from all walks of life and ethnic backgrounds enjoy equal rights, we first have to defeat the coup. And for that, we urgently need the world’s support.”
I still think their election strongly resembled the pattern in America's heavily fraudulent election, including the machines used to do the deed. There will always be complainers, and they always complain invoking the loftiest of terms.
What you are missing is the point that building a false narrative around a “victim”, especially of victim craving democracy is standard fare of the regime change globalist despots and New World Orderists.
Too many who craft their world view on pieces like this end up on the wrong side of the freedom and democracy battle. I wish I could add to that, on the wrong side of history, but as we all know, the winners write the history.
Got it, but in this case, there is a legitimate desire and urge for democracy again as interviewed and contextualized by an independent journalist whose reporting we all [fill in the blank] enough to pay $5/month for.
Should read "started calling for FaceBook to shut down the pages and accounts of proto-fascist Buddhist organizations and members associated with Wirathu and the 969 movement" as far back as at least 2013-14.
It's easy to relate to fear, at one time or another we all encounter what we perceive to be a threat.
Considering Myanmar's history, along with current events there, it's a rational reaction to experience some degree of fear. Based on this interview Zaw strikes me as an intelligent person who wants to make a positive difference, which means he has to overcome his fear.
As noted, we are seeing a lot of similar actions taking place in this country but the situations are not parallel. In Myanmar their version of Deep State (DS) is in control; that's where the threat to Zaw comes from. Here in the US, our DS, after eliminating its brush with fear derived from what it perceived to be a threat to its well being, is now going full speed ahead to insulate itself from any future attempts that the ignorant citizenry might attempt to impose on its turf.
That's where the similarities part ways. Here, all of the approved writers are the opposite of Zaw, they support the DS. Even our friend Mr. Taibbi, while causing a few ripples in the swamp's backwater, still embraces much of the DS's narratives. "Trump bad, Biden good; grunt grunt!".
I guess the fear writers experience here is not, at this point at any rate, a great threat to life, but it is perceived to be a great threat to livelihood. So the "go along to get along" mindset that ruined the Republican Party has now spread to the media; at least the portions that have at least a touch of common sense remaining. The rest of the media is beyond help, they are in lockstep behind the lead lemming; their Judas goat, heading for the edge of the cliff.
<<Mr. Taibbi, while causing a few ripples in the swamp's backwater, still embraces much of the DS's narratives. "Trump bad, Biden good; grunt grunt!">>
I do not believe that MT endorsed Biden at any point. He criticized Trump heavily. Criticizing Trump does not equate to endorsing Biden.
If confronted with counter-evidence I will gladly admit to my wrongitude.
Again, . . what are you talking about? I honestly don’t remember Matt saying anything good about Biden. I have heard Matt criticize Biden. I do not have anything good to say about Biden either. How does that translate to a psychiatric condition?
I have to confess I am still becoming acquainted with el Matto, I guess I have been aware of existence for a year or two at the most. Obviously I appreciate his approach enough to spend my hard earned money on a subscription of his post. I do think he is a victim of the culture he grew up in, no fault of his of course. If he and I have a bonding moment it is the shared appreciation of "72 Campaign Trail. A classic, which indicates it will be on the woke's chopping block any ol day now.
I am currently reading "Hate Inc". It was tough getting started due to the constant Trump slamming. Since I am not a Trump worshipper, just like I am not a Taibbi worshipper, I don't find it overly impressive. All of Trump's faults are assumed, no specifics.
I will say I do understand the left's opinion of Trump. They have been consistent in their approach. They attack Trump by saying stuff like "Trump, he's so disgusting, look he's picking his nose!", all they while the accuser is picking their butt. Why would someone acknowledge such childish tripe?
So Matt hasn't endorsed Biden? I say his silence, at least as far as I have observed, strikes me as deafeningly supportive.
#1: I appreciate your willingness to engage civilly with ideas you may not support.
#2: "Matt hasn't endorsed Biden? I say his silence, at least as far as I have observed, strikes me as deafeningly supportive."
...I, personally, can't get on board with the idea that someone must aggressively and publicly denounce my enemy in order to be my friend. To me that's Mao/Red Guards stuff.
"...I, personally, can't get on board with the idea that someone must aggressively and publicly denounce my enemy in order to be my friend. To me that's Mao/Red Guards stuff."
Haa, that's funny. I consider Matt to be a commentator/reporter. I have no expectations until I read his stuff. I don't look for denouncements, however objective reporting would be a pleasant change.
I guess others don't see what I consider to be a disconnect. I think we agree Matt ain't no fan of Trump; and that's fine. Yet, as Matt notes the crumbling of individual rights he doesn't seem to acknowledge where the pressure is coming from. Matt's a supporter of Bernie, correct? Has Bernie made any pronouncements related to Wokeworld 2021? If anything I suspect Bernie is getting delight from seeing what is happening these days. Matt appears to be compliant in that regard.
Even though I have never been a fan of Trump's style, each day, compared to those who constantly attack him, I think he looks better than the alternatives.
Katie was/is a big “Bernie supporter.” Wouldn’t characterize Matt as such. And I think you’ll find, upon further review, that Matt does know “where the pressure is coming from.” Matt has been all over the ostensible left’s assault on free speech lately, for example. I’d recommend his analysis of Marcuse that he recently wrote. And Matt really is not “compliant” with anyone in elected office, as far as I can tell.
<<Even though I have never been a fan of Trump's style, each day, compared to those who constantly attack him, I think he looks better than the alternatives.>>
You and I are kind of on the same page there. I wound up having a higher opinion of the dude when he left office than when he came in.
...it's still not a high opinion, but everyone's entitled to their own. Limbo lower now.
Yeah, I was pretty skeptical when Trump won, and while he didn't address some issues the way I would have preferred, he did some pretty good stuff. As I have said before, one thing that makes Trump look pretty good is his predecessors were really lousy.
As a Christian I don't only vote for people who claim to be Christians. I've seen a lot of lousy "Christian" politicians and I've seen a few non-Christian politicians who were right for the job. Political office is a secular position, it doesn't require a super saint or a Mr/Ms Manners to be an effective elected official.
It's not that the world is looking the other way. The world is looking at this and is shrugging its shoulders. Or at least appears to have that level of indifference.
Myanmar is an absolute nightmare. Where was all this bold protesting while the Buddhist dominated government were practicing genocide on the Rohingya? Then read how terribly misogynistic their culture is - it will make you want to retch.
So US-centric, all these comments. The story is about Burma (aka Myanmar) and the repressive military junta that just staged a coup against the democratically elected (for the first time in decades) government of the party of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and all that anyone seems to have picked up on is that "it is happening here as well." That's true, and alarming, and in need of powerful resistance . . . but it is also incumbent on real progressives to show solidarity with Zaw and his compatriots whose lives are imperiled and whose futures are now very insecure.
Myanmar's nascent democracy is in real danger, and assuming everyone is concerned primarily with how that affects US power and interests in the region (vis-a-vis China), we ought to be paying attention and doing what we can to support the resistance.
When she was secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton opened the country's doors to multinational corporate exploitation, visiting a couple times (as did John Kerry when he was secretary of state after her). But generally the U.S. has left a country that had been under brutal military rule for decades to fend for itself while multinationals run rampant after its resources. There's been some occasional chastisement of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi now and again for the horrific ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people taking place under her watch. But now, journalists and monks (remember the Saffron Revolution, if not the earlier ones?) and students and ordinary people are in the middle of an existential crisis for the country. We need to pay attention. At the very least, follow Zaw Moe Shinn on Twitter (@zawmoeshinn) and spread the word.
Now in the US we have what Gad Saad describes as "intellectual terrorists flying airplanes of bullshit into our towers of rational thought." We have a cultural revolution going on in this country that has to pay lip service to democracy and freedom while under-cutting it. The woke don't want equality they want to flip the old order on it's head. It's about power, retribution, and censoring anything even remotely resembling western culture. Eliminating Dr. Sues books is just a start. Call it silly or inconsequential at your own peril.
Dr. Seuss Enterprises, the entertainment company that manages the late writer’s estate, has decided to stop publishing six of Geisel’s books that feature racist and insensitive imagery. They include: “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street,” “If I Ran the Zoo,” “McElligot’s Pool,” “On Beyond Zebra!,” “Scrambled Eggs Super!,” and “The Cat’s Quizzer.” Now that everybody is buying Dr. Seuss books, they are making lots of money. Hilarious. Culture wars sucks on both sides!
Please list the Dr. Seuss books that got eliminated. When you say eliminated, are they illegal to print or buy or borrow or sell? I've not followed this story and am curious what your understand of it is.
The Suess estate cancelled the publications of six books it identified as racist, and Amazon in turn banned the sale of these books (both new and used). Amazon sells close to 90% of the books in the country.
Part of the problem is that Amazon banned the six Suess books while still allowing books like Hitler's Mein kampf to be sold on their platform....
Frankly, I think we should all be allowed to read both Dr. Seuss and Mein Kampf.
Me too.
Historico-personal anecdote. When I was still in high school and already leaning far left I decided I wanted to know what was what with Hitler so I went to our wonderful old Carnegie library and took Mein Kampf (in English) off the shelf. The librarian would not let me check the book out without a note from my parents, which I got soon after.
Around the same time I tried to check out a big fat red-covered book called, I think, The Bolsheviks. Ditto on the no checkout without a note. Only this time I had to get one from a teacher as well.
I suspect the real problem Murcan "liberals" are having with Seuss is his role in anti-Vietnam protest back in the days when Marcuse stalked the good ol' boys and no one wanted a beer with that Kraut.
Yep, more speech is better. Even when it's merde.
If you can sit through a reading of Mein Kampf, cheers. What a POS book.
I couldn't, frankly. I still think people should be allowed to read shitty books if that's what they want to do.
There’s no accounting for taste. People watch the kardashians.
I remember very little of what ended up being a partial reading that IIRC reminded me a little of the excessive ranting of Ayn Rand, who was also on the reading list of every dedicated working class teen intellect in those dark days.
I am not a credentialed mental health professional, but I speculate that both Hitler and Rand were somewhere on the autism spectrum. I think it comes across in their writing.
Autists sometimes muster their energies into changing the world.
It's insulting to Ayn Rand to compare the two, as Ayn Rand's books were at least readable from cover to cover without thoughts of suicide, but they have certain strains of rant in common, I agree.
The real problem is that the six canceled Seuss books should have passed into the public domain decades ago except for the efforts of Sonny Bono and the rest of the MAFIAA lobbyists. Then, someone else could publish these very old books. So f you want to attack something here, attack that.
I am a bad person but I still find Sonny Bono's death from crashing into a tree at high speed extremely comical. I imagine it happening like an old Friz Freleng cartoon.
He was a far lesser version of Lee Hazlewood.
Bonus points for Lee Hazelwood reference. Summer Wine is immortal.
Ah, I get it. I don't see the problem. Amazon and the publisher are private companies and can do as they please. I have bigger problems with Amazon than not selling particular books. We all have bigger problems with Amazon.
They can do it, but that doesn't make it right. Ebay also banned them. FB marketplace and CL haven't yet, so at least we can still meet up furtively in a dark parking lot and exchange crumpled bills for children's books. I read and reread far worse depictions of indigenous people in the Tin Tin books when I was a kid and turned out just fine. How long until the censors come calling for them? If all a kid has the option of reading is white bread and bologna "Anti-racist Baby" books, then they'll most likely just turn to mind-numbing iPad games instead. But maybe that's the idea.
FB and CL are dark alley transactions? I sold a few cars on CL and never had that sense from it. I mean... I get the issue here but this isn't the hill to die on. The publisher- the one who profits from the sale of this product- agrees with the critics. I'm with you on the broader problems of cancel culture and it's ridiculous affects on free speech, but this ain't that. Fire example,
The publisher's typically generic statement and accompanying decision is probably less about agreement and more about a calculated compromise that they believe will ensure maximum continued profitability. Which is why pushback is important - because if other publishers see a fallout not accompanied by an increase in profits then maybe they'll make a different decision when the mob comes for their books.
I don't want my children to grow up in a world where they can't read Tin Tin for fear that reading an actual stereotype rather than reading Ibram X Kendi's stereotype of a stereotype will irreparably warp their fragile young mind. I got an incredible amount of creative ideas from the series as a child, and a racist mindset did not accompany.
The dark alley transaction was a joke, sort of, although that is the apparent trajectory. Even now, probably almost half the country would frown less on a transaction involving counterfeit goods than they would on buying a Dr Suess book. I have had some sketchy experiences but they were usually in rough parts of town while traveling.
For example, the attempts at cancelling jk rowling were gross and ignorant. That's what should be criticized. And I don't even like harry potter movies.
Shocking! Good thing nothing like that could ever happen in the U.S.!
"If it were possible for any nation to fathom another people’s bitter experience through a book, how much easier its future fate would become and how many calamities and mistakes it could avoid. But it is very difficult. There always is this fallacious belief: ‘It would not be the same here; here such things are impossible.’ Alas, all the evil of the twentieth century is possible everywhere on earth."
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Introduction, The Gulag Archipelago,
Abridged Edition, 1985
Thank you for this outstanding warning. It is now obvious that we have now entered a new phase -- beyond "just" chronic bi-partisan corruption. Direct attack on freedom of speech and publishers are no longer limited to publisher Julian Assange -- although silence by Democrat politicians and corporate media was deafening. Even once independent TYT and The Intercept have been coopted, i.e., corrupted, and actively participate in defamation of Julian Assange.
However, the recent letter by two California House "lifers" and useless Democrats Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney to CEO's of cable companies are truly unparalleled and represents the rise of fascism in the US -- under a guise of "fighting fascism." All these multiple attacks are clearly carefully choreographed and coordinated -- easily predicted and well understood since we should always keep in mind that there is one huge elephant in the room:
The scam of the century - the now 5-year long Russia-gate hoax initiated by Obama/Biden administration
The Russia-gate hoax and two-impeachment “entertainments” were concocted by Obama/Hillary/Biden/Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Maxine Waters, Jamie Ruskin, etc., etc. -- and their intelligence and DNC executives on behalf of their Wall Street and military and security industry donors, i.e., the War party
By far the absolutely highest need of Biden government and its DNC oligarch cabal is that Russia-gate immense hoax – the scam of the century -- will NOT / will NEVER be exposed. This represents an entirely new phase of US domestic politics -- of course, on foreign policy oligarchs of both parties are united.
Hence immense obligations to primary propagandists for their roles, including despicable Kamala Harris (Hillary’s protégé), Neera Tanden, Melissa Hodgman (wife of the Comey’s infamous Peter Strzok), Pete Buttigieg, etc, and to media executives.
The question is perhaps: Who will be the first Democrat Congressman or Senator to publicly confirm the Russia-gate conspiracy? There is absolutely no "unity and healing" until that...
Trump’s utter incompetence in handling Covid-19 created the human and economic catastrophe that should enter US history named as - Trump-virus. He brought into government religious extremism and racism. The next "Trump" will be more competent and more dangerous.
Democrats are now introducing extreme measures -- massive censorship and silencing of opponents. This is a sure sign of utter desperation of DNC corrupt and sclerotic leadership and its defeat and obliteration in next (including midterm) elections
Those of you who voted for Biden/Harris have a real mess to clean up.
Biden and Harris have a real mess to clean up -- their job, which we, the public, are paying them to do -- but based on the past track record of both I think their strategy will be to blame the victims of the mess for the mess.
So far they're making a mess out of something that didn't need to be cleaned up, and ignoring what does need to be cleaned up. Look at the growing migrant problem on the border, for example.
The Biden administration is very young but so far everything they've done or said has only entrenched the bitter divide in the country. Even Bill Clinton knew better than to call state governors (and by extension, their supporters) neanderthals. It makes you wonder if the administration is really that clueless or simply does not care for half the country that didn't vote for them? I daresay it's the latter. And I suspect it's not that they don't care, they intensely dislike the half of America that didn't vote for them and have no sincere interest in any kind of unity or consensus or compromise.
Not to mention Hillary's "basket of deplorables" ...
Ha, you beat me to it!
The DC DNC zombies are unable to stop stepping in the same cow pie; they openly derogate the average working citizen who wasn't "smart" enough to become a politician or a Wall Streeter.
We're gonna get "Make Neanderthalia Great Again" in '22 and/or '24. I should find a salon that specializes in sloping your brow.
Why is it ok to hate on Neanderthals? Humans wiped them out for reasons that are unknown, but may well be the ancestors of xenophobia and racism.
Sloping my brow?? Sorry, does not compute ...
The Ds, along with the Rs, are 2 factions of the Amer political mafia - their "disputes" are fights over territory (the US), not over how to advance the welfare of the people, so they can pillage, plunder, and pollute at will, but as long as they periodically offer ice-cream socials in the park on the weekends, or, in the common parlance, bread (a little) and circuses, (memorials for the "fallen") - we the people, for decades, have decided that LOTE is the best we can do, so we pick which one offers the better ice-cream - which melts as soon as the election is over -
I have been hoping and praying (yeah, I still do that, WTF, may not help, but couldn't hoit, as they say) for decades that folks would catch on - periodically I see a few glimmers ... how long will it take for us to decide to "throw the bums out" (as Stein, the GP Pres nominee in '12 and '16, said), and do we have time before Mother Nature decides to whack us for good - I do not know ...
So far I have not seen that our LOTE pick this time will offer any more than a few licks on the cone ...
"Everything in America has its own mafia." --Edward Limonov
You said this way better than I could except for: trump mishandling the virus- he was backed into a corner with the browbeating/bleating 24/7 media fearmongering; the dems collusion with china to use the virus-scam to crush dissent & trump-they don't care who gets hurt in the process. Don't get me wrong- I consider trump incompetent only accurately hitting many, not all, of the very real and serious concerns of many Americans but he is a con man. Yes the next trump might be competent thus dangerous.
You are getting close to the truth but not quite. Trump had no "con" in forgoing a gorgeous life and taking the presidency while donating the check. I'm wondering if there is a personal reason why you need to call him that, because clearly there was no personal profit motive despite the mainstream media's endless blathering on that there was.
Donald Trump 'wants FDA to approve oleander plant extract as a drug to cure Covid-19' after it was promoted by Ben Carson (the Bible-idiot --: Egyptian pyramids were built by St. Joseph to store eheat")and MyPillow founder - despite no proof that it works
• Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson and MyPillow boss Mike Lindell, a big Trump supporter, have urged Trump to look at the botanical extract
• Meeting arranged by the pair with a director at company developing the product
• Andrew Whitney, of Phoenix Biotechnology, claims he is '100%' sure it's a cure
• But there is no peer-reviewed study to support the claim
• Lindell says that in the meeting, Trump 'basically said the FDA should approve it'
• Senior administration official expressed deep concern that Carson and Lindell were 'pushing a dubious product at the highest levels' during the pandemic
By ROSS IBBETSON
PUBLISHED: 05:03 EDT, 17 August 2020
Remember that part wherein they all bad mouthed HCQ? Even had their journals publish rubbish about it (one later retracted). All, it seems because Trump had touted it (or maybe it was the profit motive behind the upcoming vaccines).
Turns out it's so effective, no vaccine is even necessary. 65 years in use across the globe and inexpensive.
I know nothing about your drug, but your response looks much like the indignant spin we saw around HCQ.
I’ll grant that Trump played a bit fast and loose w/ FDA prig types. That said, I like an aggressive approach and encouragement with the vaccines and treatment options. I saw this as a sign of positivity-proactive as opposed to reactive science. I’ll take medicine hawking over basement hiding as a PR strategy for the pandemic any day of the week and 2x on Sunday. Maybe it’s my Sagittarius nature-I’m supposed to think like this.
His idiotic non-scientific "playing" -- we have 550K DEAD -- China - 4X larger population - less than 5K and -- economy back in full swing...
Some playing.... with religious extremists and grifters of all kind.
If course, DNC oligarch cabal is no better -- on that we agree. But Trump voted himself out with his stupidity
Trump, in a rally in NH before the '16 R primaries, said that he could make a lot more money "out there" - so why did he want to be Pres - because he wanted to be "the most powerful man in the world"
It was/is for him about power - not about people or principle or even personal profit, but about personal Power, that, I would think, was clear from the way he governed - and it was clear he would do whatever he could to hold on to it for as long as he could ...
You are absorbing a false media narrative that has only assumption to support it.
How about considering what the man said? That he saw the results of the globalists interests having stripped America of jobs and money for over 40 years, and wanted to save us from the complete disaster that they are now resuming course towards post-haste.
Wake up and look up.
I listened to what the man said - either you didn't or you wanted him to be "the most powerful man in the world"
Why would you believe that the several tens of millions of Americans who support Trump are personally invested in his or anyone else's egotistical dreams. You have so bought into the demeaning of the man and especially of his "deplorable" supporters that you have dismissed the very real possibility that what they see is a man who wanted to give back to his and their country. And he certainly made huge sacrifices in his attempts to do so.
Millions of not-as-stupid-as-you-have-blindly-believed Americans saw that what Trump wanted for this country aligned with their own desires, for themselves and for their families, and that what Trump hoped to cure was the corruption that pervades every corner of our government and has DISSOLVED the American middle class dream. And it's not just the normal money-shifting kind of corruption, but corruption that was and is leading to the destruction of American independence and the sovereignty of We The People.
Send ANY human being in to halt this demise and you will get a very similar response to the one that Trump got. And the media, Hollywood and all other globalist interests would launch the same attacks. Any many who believe their state-run nightly-news will buy into the villainization.
But the biggest problem we face now is election fraud, because should 100% of American citizens come to the realization that their country is being slid out from under them, we could still do nothing about it because our election machinery is now corrupt - BY DESIGN. And they are now passing laws to cement their corruption.
Does that at least open your mind to what might be going on in Myanmar?
Agree, except not so sure about "the dems collusion with China to use the virus-scam to crush dissent & trump". Fauci had outsourced much of the corona research to Wuhan once research was terminated at Ft. Detrick which has an unsavory history of bio-warfare. I doubt that China's central government would collude if they knew of the consequences.https://aarclibrary.org/the-mind-blowing-history-at-fort-detrick/
Citation for Fauci outsourcing corona virus research to Wuhan?
Correct and NOTHING wrong with that.
Collaboration in research with Wuhan lab is laudatory and has been going for years.
In desperation, the incompetent con artist Trump attacked China which provided the entire DNA structure of Covid-19 virus to the entire world already in early January.
Still want the citation - because I have my own theory on the source of the virus ...
The research cooperation is well known and laudatory -- goole search on Dr. Fauci beyond demanding citation... -- with a bit of practice you can easily do your own research ;-))
"Virus-scam".
We are not so different. We have devolved. We are no longer the beacon of liberty and freedom. Very sad.
We are not different at all. Very sad indeed.
"And I’m still writing things against the military coup on Facebook." How long until Facebook decides to join the arbiters of truth in Myanmar and then deletes her account, only after sharing her information with authorities. The parallels to a military junta in Myanmar and the US police state are chilling.
Most chilling words from Shinn: "the strongest hopeless feeling in my life." Thank you Emily and Matt for illuminating this repression as we sit in comfy tilting office chairs with pricey herbal tea, fuming about a crappy local mayor with a team nearly the size of the White House staff, bus route overseers earning $250K on the public dole despite few customers, or an honest ethics commission whose hands are tied amidst a massive FBI corruption probe. I disagree with a comment earlier that we are not so different from Myanmar. We let things happen. A big difference.
Seems like there are a lot of places around the globe showing their true natures.
I think the term to explain it is "coercive isomorphism". Parallel processes that are contagious and feed off of one another; paradoxes stunting real progress. William Blum's Killing Hope chronicles the start of this and more recent work by Vincent Bevins' Jakarta Method closes the circle upon coups, regime changes, and political theatre of military power.
Cancelling corruption and rooting it out is real progress. Sometimes the roots go so deep, the military is the last hope of the people.
It's a gamble for sure, but when hope is lost, citizens have nothing to lose.
Have you seen American politics lately? I mean really taken a look.
Military is not the last hope of the people. They are owned by the elite class. What planet do you live on -- just about every mass human right crime of the past century was enacted by a military class connected to capital and power.
Janine, I am not sure you know what you are talking about....
The elite class and global elite own our congress and are in the process of bankrupting us to justify handing this country over to the New World Order and the Great Reset (global monetary system). Our Supreme Court turned a blind eye to massive, result altering election fraud (admitted by Time magazine, if all the evidence wan't enough for you). Pelosi & Co. hire agitators to frame every Trump supporter in the country as a white supremacist domestic terrorist- so they can come and get Americans' guns (dems have been trying for years)(again, so we can be rolled onto the new world order). Congress just passed election laws designed to institutionalize the election fraud tactics they just used. The state and their propaganda wing have just sold American businesses and freedoms down the river for the benefit of the big-pharma investor class with the COVID Pandemic Fraud (it's only dangerous to exactly the same people who are vulnerable to flu, and the death rate for 2020 is NOT elevated). Relentlessly telling us to wear masks which science has long known do not contain viruses.
Let's see what else. ..
How many TRILLIONS (google: a billion seconds versus a trillion seconds to really get the feel for that) of "COVID" assistance has been passed in the last 6 months wherein the great majority of it is going NOT to the American people and small businesses WHO have been UNNECESSARILY shut down for a YEAR, but to overseas "causes" like "Gender Studies in Pakistan" but in actuality, will most likely 'circle back' to the US and into politicians family "Foundations" and political "Foundations" to ensure all further globalist candidates elections. Or maybe we'll be circuitously funding more violence in our own cities by way of feeding one or another activist anti-American NGO (Have you heard of Soros?).
Our media endlessly lies for the corrupt state and conceals the truth from American citizens (Tony Bobulinski, Hunter's laptop, election results, severity of Covid). The one man who really wanted to make America strong again was slashed and burned for 5 years in relentless character attacks- and condemned for not maintaining what they deemed to be a presidential enough tone in his attempts to circumvent the media (as if there were such a thing as a presidential tone, and as if he had a choice but to go around them). Many Americans still don't even know that the 3 year Mueller investigation was a complete sham/hoax. Or that Covid is completely not dangerous if your doctor isn't gagged from prescribing HCQ.)
If we don't have legitimate elections and legitimate media - which we do not, then we cannot possibly have a democratic Republic, because our politicians do not report to us and can do whatever they'd like - like what we see now.
Most people complaining about either the election fraud or the Covid lies, have been kicked off of the main social media platforms. Some of the apps that they fled to were then de-platformed. Events scheduled to discuss these issues are cancelled by social media networks - owned as you know by the "elite".
So congress is controlled by the elite, and the media is owned by the elite and communication tools censor for the elite interests, the courts have shown no interest in defending democracy, and an illegitimate President who is answering to the global elite doesn't scare you. But you think that we shouldn't hope for military help out of this mess because you think that the military is owned by the elite.
Well, that brings it full circle doesn't it?
Maybe we should just rely on a bit of grass roots campaigning for our cause.
America needs to wake up.
America is very nearly gone.
Not because it is a failed dream- as Scott Pelley and 60 Minutes just tries to convince us this evening on traitorous CBS.
But because it has been bought out from under us while we were complacently binge watching something else.
Sadly, peaceful dissent doesn't end this kind of repression. Only war or the credible threat of war can stop it. And once you concede these speech rights, they are only won back by the effusion of blood. I feel sorry for this dude, because they are going to come for him eventually, and he will suffer for everything he has written, including this interview.
It's tedious reading long threads about what Matt thinks. He's an accomplished journalist and author of many books. He can speak and write for himself.
I'd prefer to read what YOU, the commenter, think and why. Just my two cents, or one cent as the case may be.
Matt, at the risk of sounding cliché, thanks for "raising awareness" of what is going on in Myanmar. Once upon a time you could read about unrest in Third World countries with the comforting knowledge that the US is different. It is disturbing on a whole new level to see the same "anti-misinformation" campaigns of the Big Tech/Democrat/media complex being used to justify an actual coup in a foreign country. It reminds me of how the Chinese government started to frame their oppression of the Uighurs as "anti-terrorism" after 9/11.
In our country we have decided to allow a glorified shop keeper to tell us what we can say or read. Not sure that is an improvement. One can at least imagine that a country's military might have the best interests of their own country at heart. Jeff Bezos, not so much!
All the corruption with none of the patriotism.
Yup, Bezos is a glorified gypsy peddler, NOT a bibliophile at heart.
The "context" for Myanmar's current political situation that Matt sketches here reads like a summary of how the liberal international media has framed Burma since around 2015, when Myanmar and The Lady were vaulted into the empyrean known as "Beacon of Democracy" for S E Asia.
So what that leaves out, because what the State Department and the warmongers at Human Rights Watch consider "democracy" is sacrosanct, is considerable and worthy of attention.
The NLD, Suu Kyi's vehicle for reclaiming what is rightfully hers because her Dad was the Father of the Nation she is now called Mother to, disallowed all of its Muslim members from standing in that much-praised election.
In the most recent election, the NLD-controlled election commission denied the right of non-Burman ethnic parties to take part. These are the political parties that represent the roughly one third of Myanmar citizens who are not Bamar, the white supremacists of Burma.
The Tatmadaw has long been one of the most generally hated institutions in the world. Not long ago, while Rohingya villages burned and 750,000 people streamed into Bangladesh to escape the burning and murders and rape being committed by said Tatmadaw and local militias associated with the ethnic Rakhine, the people of Burma became very vocal, both in the streets and on FaceBook, in support of the Tatmadaw and The Lady. Please ask Zaw Moe Shin to provide evidence that he was prepared to risk his life protesting the ethnic cleansing his democracy undertook with evident glee. Then maybe I'd listen.
And this quote "the good thing about this younger generation is they don't care because they have tasted democracy. It’s really free and it's good and you can do whatever you want" is worth a howl of laughter and a little rolling around on the floor if not an attack of Blazing Saddles flatulence. The very idea that what he is calling "democracy" was free and good is suspect but the idea that anyone could do whatever they wanted in a country where you can be jailed for using imagery suggestive of the Buddha or Buddhism in the wrong social context is just disgusting.
And then there are all those problematic non-Burmans and their decades long civil wars, their displacement into camps all around Burma, and their god-awful addiction to religions like Islam and Christianity.
And just for a kicker, the same NGO-corporate media-complex that Matt trusts to provide "context" for Myanmar's political situation, started calling for FaceBook to shut down the pages and accounts of proto-fascist Buddhist organizations and members associated with Wirathu and the 969 movement. These are the kind of Burman supremacists who protest police violence one day and intermarriage between Buddhists and Muslims the next. They also actively promoted genocide/cleansing of Rohingya.
It's always good to add nuance to context. Especially when "context" means Reuters and Human Rights Watch boilerplate.
You and Zaw can both be correct. He has a pulse for broad sentiment in Myanmar — at least among the younger Burmese — that you probably do not have. So you can feel free to roll with your flatulence attack, but Zaw is just conveying what people are thinking and feeling from on the ground.
Calling his take “disgusting” while he’s actually on the ground and risking his life amid this shit show just pisses me off, frankly. He and others want democracy back. With that foundation — along with improved education and independent reporting — other reforms can happen, the types you clearly know a lot about and point out here.
Derek, you seem a bit overly emotionally invested in someone else's opinion about a foreign election. Maybe the military has stepped in to reverse a corruption, and the new election will be without fraud- thus enforcing democracy. That would be a good thing, and hardly qualifies as a coup - more an intervention.
It looks from here like election machine fraud has become a global pandemic. Democracies everywhere will benefit from a clean up. If fraud happens at a national level, to whom else can the people turn?
It would be defeatist and undemocratic to say that there is nothing people can do when an election has been stolen.
Michael, via Tun Khin (President of Burmese Rohingya Organisation UK) recent piece in Al Jazeera:
“...This interethnic solidarity shows what Myanmar could look like if there were no military interference. We cannot forget that during the election in 2020, many people – including the Rohingya – were effectively disenfranchised. But to reverse this process, to build an equitable society where people from all walks of life and ethnic backgrounds enjoy equal rights, we first have to defeat the coup. And for that, we urgently need the world’s support.”
I still think their election strongly resembled the pattern in America's heavily fraudulent election, including the machines used to do the deed. There will always be complainers, and they always complain invoking the loftiest of terms.
We shall see.
What you are missing is the point that building a false narrative around a “victim”, especially of victim craving democracy is standard fare of the regime change globalist despots and New World Orderists.
Too many who craft their world view on pieces like this end up on the wrong side of the freedom and democracy battle. I wish I could add to that, on the wrong side of history, but as we all know, the winners write the history.
Got it, but in this case, there is a legitimate desire and urge for democracy again as interviewed and contextualized by an independent journalist whose reporting we all [fill in the blank] enough to pay $5/month for.
Should read "started calling for FaceBook to shut down the pages and accounts of proto-fascist Buddhist organizations and members associated with Wirathu and the 969 movement" as far back as at least 2013-14.
It's easy to relate to fear, at one time or another we all encounter what we perceive to be a threat.
Considering Myanmar's history, along with current events there, it's a rational reaction to experience some degree of fear. Based on this interview Zaw strikes me as an intelligent person who wants to make a positive difference, which means he has to overcome his fear.
As noted, we are seeing a lot of similar actions taking place in this country but the situations are not parallel. In Myanmar their version of Deep State (DS) is in control; that's where the threat to Zaw comes from. Here in the US, our DS, after eliminating its brush with fear derived from what it perceived to be a threat to its well being, is now going full speed ahead to insulate itself from any future attempts that the ignorant citizenry might attempt to impose on its turf.
That's where the similarities part ways. Here, all of the approved writers are the opposite of Zaw, they support the DS. Even our friend Mr. Taibbi, while causing a few ripples in the swamp's backwater, still embraces much of the DS's narratives. "Trump bad, Biden good; grunt grunt!".
I guess the fear writers experience here is not, at this point at any rate, a great threat to life, but it is perceived to be a great threat to livelihood. So the "go along to get along" mindset that ruined the Republican Party has now spread to the media; at least the portions that have at least a touch of common sense remaining. The rest of the media is beyond help, they are in lockstep behind the lead lemming; their Judas goat, heading for the edge of the cliff.
<<Mr. Taibbi, while causing a few ripples in the swamp's backwater, still embraces much of the DS's narratives. "Trump bad, Biden good; grunt grunt!">>
I do not believe that MT endorsed Biden at any point. He criticized Trump heavily. Criticizing Trump does not equate to endorsing Biden.
If confronted with counter-evidence I will gladly admit to my wrongitude.
I’ve never heard Matt say a positive thing about Biden, but have heard him criticize Biden A LOT.
Pls do your research a bit. Matt wrote a book about Trump -- "The Insane Clown President" ;-))
I know. I read it. What are you talking about? I didn’t even mention Trump.
"I’ve never heard Matt say a positive thing about Biden, but have heard him criticize Biden A LOT".
Your other personality wrote the above sentence... ;-)) Go to see a psychiatrist please
Again, . . what are you talking about? I honestly don’t remember Matt saying anything good about Biden. I have heard Matt criticize Biden. I do not have anything good to say about Biden either. How does that translate to a psychiatric condition?
Matt is a rarity among journalists for his integrity and facts.
And Biden, a co-conspirator with Obama for initiating the scam of the century - Russia-gate 5+-years hoax - should be criticized much, much more.
What positive you would say about Biden?
I wouldn’t say anything good about Biden. There is nothing good to say about Biden. What are you talking about?
Matt is on record for not voting for neither one.... ;-))
Ok, thanks!
I have to confess I am still becoming acquainted with el Matto, I guess I have been aware of existence for a year or two at the most. Obviously I appreciate his approach enough to spend my hard earned money on a subscription of his post. I do think he is a victim of the culture he grew up in, no fault of his of course. If he and I have a bonding moment it is the shared appreciation of "72 Campaign Trail. A classic, which indicates it will be on the woke's chopping block any ol day now.
I am currently reading "Hate Inc". It was tough getting started due to the constant Trump slamming. Since I am not a Trump worshipper, just like I am not a Taibbi worshipper, I don't find it overly impressive. All of Trump's faults are assumed, no specifics.
I will say I do understand the left's opinion of Trump. They have been consistent in their approach. They attack Trump by saying stuff like "Trump, he's so disgusting, look he's picking his nose!", all they while the accuser is picking their butt. Why would someone acknowledge such childish tripe?
So Matt hasn't endorsed Biden? I say his silence, at least as far as I have observed, strikes me as deafeningly supportive.
#1: I appreciate your willingness to engage civilly with ideas you may not support.
#2: "Matt hasn't endorsed Biden? I say his silence, at least as far as I have observed, strikes me as deafeningly supportive."
...I, personally, can't get on board with the idea that someone must aggressively and publicly denounce my enemy in order to be my friend. To me that's Mao/Red Guards stuff.
You're not required to watch UI, but Matt and Katie have been relentlessly mocking Biden for as long as it's been running. A key, although not the only, example: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/roger-waters-useful-idiots-taibbi-1093448/
"...I, personally, can't get on board with the idea that someone must aggressively and publicly denounce my enemy in order to be my friend. To me that's Mao/Red Guards stuff."
Haa, that's funny. I consider Matt to be a commentator/reporter. I have no expectations until I read his stuff. I don't look for denouncements, however objective reporting would be a pleasant change.
I guess others don't see what I consider to be a disconnect. I think we agree Matt ain't no fan of Trump; and that's fine. Yet, as Matt notes the crumbling of individual rights he doesn't seem to acknowledge where the pressure is coming from. Matt's a supporter of Bernie, correct? Has Bernie made any pronouncements related to Wokeworld 2021? If anything I suspect Bernie is getting delight from seeing what is happening these days. Matt appears to be compliant in that regard.
Even though I have never been a fan of Trump's style, each day, compared to those who constantly attack him, I think he looks better than the alternatives.
Sad, ain't it?
Katie was/is a big “Bernie supporter.” Wouldn’t characterize Matt as such. And I think you’ll find, upon further review, that Matt does know “where the pressure is coming from.” Matt has been all over the ostensible left’s assault on free speech lately, for example. I’d recommend his analysis of Marcuse that he recently wrote. And Matt really is not “compliant” with anyone in elected office, as far as I can tell.
<<Even though I have never been a fan of Trump's style, each day, compared to those who constantly attack him, I think he looks better than the alternatives.>>
You and I are kind of on the same page there. I wound up having a higher opinion of the dude when he left office than when he came in.
...it's still not a high opinion, but everyone's entitled to their own. Limbo lower now.
<<Sad, ain't it?>>
Yes.
Yeah, I was pretty skeptical when Trump won, and while he didn't address some issues the way I would have preferred, he did some pretty good stuff. As I have said before, one thing that makes Trump look pretty good is his predecessors were really lousy.
As a Christian I don't only vote for people who claim to be Christians. I've seen a lot of lousy "Christian" politicians and I've seen a few non-Christian politicians who were right for the job. Political office is a secular position, it doesn't require a super saint or a Mr/Ms Manners to be an effective elected official.
Agreed that the Trump bashing gets old quick and it's not flattering. A little of it goes a long way. A lot of it goes nowhere.
He said he did not vote for president this time around. Take that as you will.
Check out “The Four Food Groups” segment on any given Useful Idiots podcast
Thank you Matt for shining a light on what is happening in Myanmar while the world looks the other way.
It's not that the world is looking the other way. The world is looking at this and is shrugging its shoulders. Or at least appears to have that level of indifference.
That light is shining on us ....
That was my hope in bothering to read this. Sadly, I know no more after reading it than I knew before.
Myanmar is an absolute nightmare. Where was all this bold protesting while the Buddhist dominated government were practicing genocide on the Rohingya? Then read how terribly misogynistic their culture is - it will make you want to retch.
So US-centric, all these comments. The story is about Burma (aka Myanmar) and the repressive military junta that just staged a coup against the democratically elected (for the first time in decades) government of the party of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and all that anyone seems to have picked up on is that "it is happening here as well." That's true, and alarming, and in need of powerful resistance . . . but it is also incumbent on real progressives to show solidarity with Zaw and his compatriots whose lives are imperiled and whose futures are now very insecure.
Myanmar's nascent democracy is in real danger, and assuming everyone is concerned primarily with how that affects US power and interests in the region (vis-a-vis China), we ought to be paying attention and doing what we can to support the resistance.
When she was secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton opened the country's doors to multinational corporate exploitation, visiting a couple times (as did John Kerry when he was secretary of state after her). But generally the U.S. has left a country that had been under brutal military rule for decades to fend for itself while multinationals run rampant after its resources. There's been some occasional chastisement of Daw Aung San Suu Kyi now and again for the horrific ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya people taking place under her watch. But now, journalists and monks (remember the Saffron Revolution, if not the earlier ones?) and students and ordinary people are in the middle of an existential crisis for the country. We need to pay attention. At the very least, follow Zaw Moe Shinn on Twitter (@zawmoeshinn) and spread the word.