In an irony only public radio could miss, "On the Media" hosts an hour on the perils of "free speech absolutism" without interviewing a defender of free speech.
It was pointed out to me recently that the gist of this movement, whether it be critical race theory or this anti-free speech brigade, is reactionary. They fully reject the Civil Rights Movement in favor of identity group segregation and go even further to assert that individual rights should be demoted below those of the collective or done away with altogether.
This article cements that argument in my head.
The Left supported free speech until they got what they wanted, institutional and cultural power. Now they want to do away with it because it threatens them. They will disguise their desire to do so with claims of "It's to protect you!" but ultimately, it's all about them and eliminating their opposition.
It should be pointed out that the "End of History" has been claimed before, usually with horrific results.
'Communism', 'socialism', 'democracy'... all ideals rarely realized before the psycho/socio-pathic among us commandeer the system into a plutocracy of some sort. Human nature?
Exactly. *In practice*, ALL political and economic systems -- including capitalism, feudalism, etc. -- suffer the same entropy: The more capable + more sociopathic actors learn how to effect, and then execute, a concentration of power until the system grinds to a halt and cracks up. Communists are just more efficient about it. Wash, rinse, repeat.
That's what we have to figure out how to correct: Concentration of power. However, with ever-increasing power embodied in technologies (of all kinds), we might, unfortunately, be past the point of no return.
I think you are very right about dangers of power and our need to oppose it generally, but very wrong about tech. Let’s take a few largely centralized technologies and see how they don’t have to be that way.
There is nothing magical about commercial or government internet service providers that makes them necessary to run the internet. America has hundreds of community owned internet service providers that are largely faster and cheaper than the commercial options: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3np4a/new-municipal-broadband-map
Oh and let’s not forget Linux - arguably the worlds best operating systems are Linux, and they are free open source made by hippies for everyone.
Now let’s talk about some more serious technological monopolies. What about energy? Well, green energy lets us all own our own power plant if we have a house, and we can get into a community energy trust in an apartment. Not only can you buy solar panels and wind turbines, but you can make your own cheap wind turbine https://opensourcelowtech.org/wind_turbine.html or make your own ethanol at home or with your neighbors https://survivallife.com/how-make-own-ethanol-gas/ Now we have our own energy - green energy as primary, and ethanol to fill in the gaps.
Now let’s really piss of the rulers - we don’t need them to manufacture our medicine. Sure, patent law and the FDA to send us to prison if we make our own, but it’s very possible to do so. https://openinsulin.org/ and https://fourthievesvinegar.org/ are examples of people doing that. Make your own cure for hep C or your own insulin - yeah, you can do that. Don’t need big pharma either.
How about the money monopoly? Crypto is already a massive success and the blockchain options just keep expanding.
I could go on, but the point still stands; nothing about modern technology is necessitating that we have centralized power controlling it. On the contrary; we have more power than ever to live high tech lives without centralized manufacturing, control, ownership, or authority. I think the rulers are really afraid we will figure this out - it’s important that they label everything I just talked about as something for libertarian crazies, because they are scared to death that it spreads and we take control of our own economic and technological lives.
This is why, even though I am largely libertarian, I don’t think an actual libertarian state can exist. Even if you started off with the absolute minimal level of government, whoever was in that government would eventually get the bright idea that they could do SO MUCH MORE TO HELP PEOPLE if only they had more power, and it would devolve from there.
Communisms by definition is about the socialization of the means of production. These people wish to privately own the means of production themselves and are therefore by definition not communists. They are some sort of: neo-feudalists, totalitarian aristocrats, or plutocrats.
Except that - in practice, if not definition - socialism inviariably leads to monopolistic oligarchy which primarily benefits wealthy capitalists. Show me a socialist nation and I'll show you half a dozen families who own the majority of that country.
Hmm. Communism can be modeled as a 100% tax rate with all payments as social welfare. China has done a quite good job of things in the past 30 years. Rather amazing really. I'm even liking this latest crackdown on giant tech companies -- imagine a nation that wants to ensure prosperity is shared by almost everyone. Shocking. We used to do that.
You're totally right about communism. However, I've never heard a communist or Marxist admit that its been tried or failed before, so I am not sure how its defined is actually important. When it fails, its not real.
The definition of communism has nothing whatever to do with the unarguable fact that countries that have called themselves communist have not me the definition of communism. So yes, in that sense there was a labeling attempt that failed.
Was the USSR communist? If it was it must have been a stateless society where all the people are considered equal and treated equally is known as Communism.
Yeah, but every attempt has been met with as brutal a response from global capitalism as they could without killing us all in a nuclear war.
It's like saying somebody can't drive because the rich guy up the street sends groups of drivers out to crash into you every time you pull out of the driveway.
At any route, capitalism is about done, there isn't enough planet left to keep doubling the economy, so we are either going to have to figure out some kind of planned economy compromise, or get used to fighting marauders over dwindling guzzoline.
“China’s emergence over the past four decades ranks as the biggest and longest-run economic boom in history. Its annual gross domestic product rose from a mere $191 B, or $195 per capita, in 1980 to $14.3 T, or $10,261 per capita, in 2019.
It has raised more than 770m people from poverty and transformed the Chinese economy into a high-tech powerhouse that is on course to eclipse America’s in size. This transformation is the landmark achievement of the Chinese Communist party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday.”
I have to agree with Exhausted. China goes 60 years with real communism and kills millions of its own citizens with purges and famines. Cultural Revolution, anybody? They go (state) capitalist and in 40 years they’re a world player. I think Boris’ citation proves EM’s point.
Nailed it. Its curious that people mix up governments and market so readily. As if the US is a free market system and the Communist Chinese system is purely command and control. At the bottom, the a Chinese citizen could appear to have more freedom than a poor person in the US. 1500 hours of "school" to braid hair for a living in the US. This thing is nothing but gatekeepers, even if the gatekeeper isnt the state.
China is a mingling of Socialism and Capitalism, but the ultimate economic power rests with a government interested in bringing its people out of poverty. Capitalists are working within an essentially socialist system. Capitalism is where the profiteers either keep the government out of their business* or they, as now, control the government. The free market was always where the strong devoured the weak, and that now goes on with massive government aid e.g. bailouts.
*Investopedia: "Businesses and services are free of government control."
In China the govt quietly steps in when the usual abuse from Capitalist greed goes to far. Businessmen in China do not scorn govt as their tool, but rightly fear it as an obstacle to their desire to milk workers, consumers and tenants of every last dime.
As I pointed out above, isn't this capitalism/communism debate silly at this point? Trapped in the 19th Century and all that? What matters is who get's to hold the reins--reigns.
@boris The cost of this "progress", both human cost and the cost to the environment, in China and elsewhere is yet to be paid. Inequality in China is similar to the US and Brazil. Germany was destroyed after WW2, it's population decimated, yet by 1970s it had already surpassed the US in terms of prosperity and the quality of life. In terms of quality of life, in ones, GDP, freedoms, almost all European countries are decades of not centuries ahead of primitive economies and cultures like China or the US that are based on exploitation of human capital.
hmm -- remember before this incredible and in human history unprecedented success (800M people lifted our of abject poverty) -- every ten years or so about 10M Chinese died from starvation....
Most Western Innovation was paid for at least in part if not whole by socialized research. The final adaptions to make things into market ready products are all private sector, but that is usually the least of all the innovation. Most private sector innovation is about figuring out the PR and such to sell people on products they otherwise wouldn't want or need. Indeed if you follow the money that is where most of the money in the private sector research and innovation fields have gone in the US over the last 100 or so years.
But Communist China has a population of around 1,450 million. So 750 million have NOT been raised out of poverty.
This is in fact well known. Many rural people moved to urban areas, but cannot get regular employment because the CCP never approved their move to the urban area, and they have no valid ID to work there.
Their population collapse with amplify this. Right now there are ~16 million persons in each age group 1 to 25 and 21 million in each age group 40 to 65. The population would be decreasing now if Mao had not killed off ~60 million people.
Unless they can undo the damage of the one-child policy and return to a fertility rate of at least 2.2 from their current 1.7 children per woman, they will lose at least 500 million people by 2100
You're just disagreeing to disagree. What I'm saying is this isn't "Communism" in the Red Scare sense because billionaires are pushing this and they absolutely believe in their OWN private property. They're happy to take the property of others, though.
Anthony Sutton, a professor back in the 70s, has written lengths about this apparent contradiction, for instance in "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution".
There is a strain of person that thinks the world is their oyster and the people in it are stupid and/or underserving, and they'll use any system that is convenient to bring it to heel.
These people usually end up being ruthlessly hated, for good cause.
I think what we are seeing is actually a sort of Hegelian synthesis of communism and nazism. And I specify nazism intentionally due to the racial elements and other factors.
You appear to be proof positive of this. You really think you got it going on but then you slip into all the same traps. “What about increasing IQs” 🤣🤣🤣
*the dumbest people in any advanced nation, are unable to keep up with what is going on in the world."
*No one* is able to keep up with what is going on in the world, most notably TPTB. Exhibit A: Our Dear Leader. Part of that problem is the illusion that *knowledge* is possible, when in fact only *belief* ever is. It's in the nature of limited and imperfect human beings. Which means, regarding democracy, that you can't separate the capable from non-capable. There are court jesters and village idiots who have insights, and geniuses who have blind spots.
Meanwhile, *all* have equal moral value. If you're a sociopath, you probably won't believe or even understand that last point. (U.S.) Democracy is usually misinterpreted as aggregate *functional* decision-making, but it's value is more like aggregate *moral* decision-making (judging people not policies, however imperfect the method) ... which is one reason why it is implemented with *representatives*.
What you're describing as inevitable is the re-emergence of sociopathic rule. So I'd look again at why it was defeated so many times.
I've spent many years flicking and batting away assertions that so-and-so is a communist because of some mildly leftish utterance. But in this case, I'd almost have to agree that these particular so-and-so's are -- in a general sense -- just what you say.
By your logic a slave colony is communism. And gosh, you are right, except these plantation masters got there though the back door--neoliberal capitalism. Funny that.
The truth is the communism/capitalism debate is an empty vessel and a relic of history. (Except as a tool for bad faith arguments.)
:-D No. They are just regular ol' people who mostly fell into that slot the way others fell int Rush Limbaugh. Now NPR has talk radio that makes people froth at the mouth too.
They don't believe in individual rights? We are raising kids this way somewhere in the chain. They put us all in danger and I think its time we start talking plainly about this reality.
2 DNC oligarchs (Biden, Pelosi, Schumer) are even WORSE (censorship, they concocted Russia-gate hoax, torture of Julian Assange, Daniel Hale’s persecution for Obama’s drone crimes, $16+B Haiti-corruption under Hillary/Obama – Biden-family corruption pales in comparison)
The ONLY solution – vote THIRD party – now and forever. ALWAYS vote – but VOTE for a Third (or fourth, fifth..) party – at ALL levels, especially at LOCAL levels (vote OUT each and every incumbent).
“If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less.” [Ralph Nader].
Only ACTION: Sustained organized mass civil disobedience - not distractions like DNC-controlled hollering and tweeting....
PS: Can we be perfectly clear who "won" in Afghanistan? Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, and their "shareholders" (70%+ of "shareholders" are just Wall Street and DC parasitic “blob” + Congress scumbags)
I got news for you, Trump is a 3rd party ..working within the 2 party system. He's an outsider that the RNC hates with a passion. I see that as a good thing.
That description is used way too loosely and is why I agreed only in a general way. A Marxist at minimum would have to be someone who has actually studied Marx -- a lengthy, difficult task -- and buys into the basic ideas, including the inevitability of a global "dictatorship of the proletariat." Any old loopy, self-contracicting line of reasoning doesn't fit the bill.
I doubt whether any of these clowns have read any Marx and they certainly have nothing but disdain for the proletariat, or what they call "a basket of deplorables." They clearly want to put self-appointed elites like themselves in charge.
In a popular sense, though, "communist" is a better term, given the elite-dominated system that described itself as such in the Soviet Union and currently claims the title in China. But even in these two cases the term isn't technically true since no one can reasonably argue that ordinary working people were or are running the show in those countries.
Aren't there a couple of politicians in Portland Oregon that actually describe themselves as followers of Trotsky? I seem to remember reading that at one point.
I agree with much of what you say. I think the average Antifa person (since they are not a group and have no membership or whatever the belief of the naïve is today), isn't intelligent enough to even know why they are out in the streets beating up old people and threatening violence to those that disagree with them. By extension the average Proud individual fighting the non-group in the streets has a similar issue and throws around parrot phrases for giggles.
I'd personally say the world we are now living in where companies and corporations dictate what people can and can't do, or whether they have vaccines or not to be a part of earning money is far more Mussolini than anything else.
It's looking a bit like that. The difference -- and maybe it's a minor one -- is that the leftie share of this lunacy is more about tearing things down than it is about national pride, offering little or no inspiring vision for the future.
We'll have to disagree on the history point. But what about the idea that these "Marxists" appear to deplore working people? Surely if they were Marxists in ANY sense of the term, they'd have to sympathize with people who do hard work for a living.
That said, however, they do exhibit one characteristic of Marxism in its Leninist and Maoist forms, that being their zealotry trying to impose correct thought patterns and speech. But I'd argue that's a tendency that isn't necessarily confined to Marxism.
More broadly, I think the rush to slap Marxist and communist labels on these disagreeable thought-enforcers tends to discredit those wielding the labels and undermine otherwise legit criticism. The minute I hear someone barking those words or "Hitler" or "Nazi," I tend to tune out as I figure the speaker or writer is going off the hyperbolic deep end and probably has nothing thoughtful or insightful to say.
You would have to earn that answer by establishing that they do deplore working people. How have you confirmed it?
I believe that 'marxism' as it is being used refers to what is called 'cultural marxism' or 'neo-marxism'.
By your standards you couldn't comment until you have studied, György Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Angela Davis.
I admire your forthrightness about the shallowness of your analysis, however.
Except the part about doing nothing to help anyone not in their peer group, leaving millions of marginalized POC with fewer protections against predatory capitalism. It's all the completely authoritarian dissolution of the individual (for everyone but them) with none of the social safety net, equality or stability of socialism. So all the worst parts of both systems.
...says the commenter who took the time to upload an animated .gif as an icon on a message board. With such time on your hands, you must be really S-M-R-T.
Ahh, you come again. I just replied to another one of your inane points. RE: The difference between leftists that believe in labor on the board (making them naturally not labor) and the commies you pretend aren't of your ilk. You're a fool.
The thrust of the all these entreaties on foundational US constitutional/DOI concepts is the elimination of individual rights and the diminishment of the individual vis a vis the proletariat. Its socialism bordering on communism, and implementation via neo Bolshevism. Much of founders motivations were based on grievances against simple majority rule (Parliamentary structures), lack of leverage of the minority and minority representation buttressed against a background of entrepreneurship and religious differentiation. Live and let Live, with minimal government intervention a backstop of last resort, not a primary orchestrator of society, easily manipulated by simple majorities.
This just isn’t correct. If you think the views of the Founders were reflected in the Constitution, then I’m afraid to tell you that it’s a document which permits lots of government. The question isn’t “what can the government do or not do?” It is “does the federal government or local government have authority to make decisions?”
Aside from the fact that the Constitution at least tacitly permitted individuals to own other individuals as property; stealing land from Indians; and depriving women of political and economic right, I regret to inform you that the the Bill of Rights didn’t even apply to local governments. That’s right. The state of Virginia was free to set up a state church and make you pay taxes to support it or free to pass laws saying you couldn’t criticize the President. It was also free — at least under ol’ Jim Madison’s Constitution — to take away your real estate without providing you compensation or to torture you. And yes, it could also do all kinds of other regulatory stuff that wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the Constitution.
I’m fine with someone saying “libertarianism is good” as a philosophical matter but IK not fine with people putting their own political views into the mouths of the Founders.
This is a stupid point. These principles weren’t in the federal constitution because the founders didn’t believe in overly elevating the power of the federal government, not because they didn’t believe in any of the principles. John Adams wrote the oldest still operative written constitution on earth and the rights it granted were still held to protect the rights of gay people to marry only a decade and a half ago.
Apparently they didn't "believe in the principles" enough to make them applicable to state and local governments as well as the Federal government. It would be strange indeed if they were truly committed to the idea that free speech was a fundamental right that no government could take away at any level yet they left the state of Pennsylvania or the city government of Boston free to pass laws restricting free speech. You don't want to hear this because it conflicts with the history you've been taught and the political rhetoric you've absorbed throughout your life, but it's true.
"John Adams wrote the oldest still operative written constitution on earth and the rights it granted were still held to protect the rights of gay people to marry only a decade and a half ago." What does this have to do with anything whatsoever?
They were during the time of the Founders, because the Bill of Rights did not apply to state and local governments. At that time, it only applied to the federal government. For an example, see Baron v. Baltimore.
The Bill of Rights did not apply to state or local governments until well-after the American Civil War through a very convoluted process called incorporation of the 14th Amendment. By that time, of course, the Founders were all long-dead.
Sorry. I’m not a nanny so no one is paying me to babysit imbecile children. Especially not the ones with magical mind reading abilities that tell them what people who are smarter and know more than them are thinking. I’m done with you child. Muted.
Notice how you didn't respond to anything I said? This is not the mark of a good argument. I'm going to guess that you don't know McCullough v. Maryland from your own asshole. You are in no position to begin discuss what the Founders believed about the principles of American government.
Quick question, why do you think the labor movement of the early 19th century died off when it did not on other places? Why did we never get another Eugene Debbs?
It's more than just a mortgage, it's the actual home itself. My mortgage has been paid for 13 years yet every year the taxman shows me who really owns it & it ain't me.
I will say that boxes are nice when its 10 below zero.
:-D :-D :-D Dude. You are either batshit crazy, really not very bright, or a troll. Not sure which. Start with biology. We humans were cave dwellers for a long, long, long time. We humans, we like our caves. We used to have fires in our caves and kept warm at night. We could look out the cave entrance and see a valley full of animals to hunt. When we get stuff, we like to build fancy caves with windows. We call them - houses. Native Americans made tipis that could be hauled around, hogans that couldn't, and built towns and cities of clay and brick. Those rooms were smaller. This instinct we have for protective shelter is deep. We aren't like gorillas or chimpanzees that just sleep where ever they happen to be, or make nests in trees for the night.
This is a start. If you can understand that, it undermines all that fancy-talk political babble-gabble.
Interesting - I've heard the "pulling the ladder up behind them" idea applied to the boomer generation regarding wealth, and even power, but it never occurred to me to translate it to the information sphere. I'm making an assumption that the reference here to the Left supporting free speech until they got into power is compatible with a narrative that the roots of the 2020's lie in the 1960's, and that yesterday's radicals are today's powerbrokers, with their students and protégées carrying on the project.
Of course, this also assumes the Left is ascendant, yet another interpretation fits the same narrative: it could also be that what we're seeing is the last gasp of the 60's revolution, the final, desperate expenditure of energy before the collapse. In many ways, this seems unlikely, with the Left ensconced at the heights of cultural and political power. Yet the increasingly unmoored conversations on the Left have such a "let them eat cake" feel at times that one wonders if this increasing trend toward authoritarianism is, in the end, actually a sign of political weakness and an impending loss of power.
It is not remotely "free speech" to say that people ought to be able to agree with you. "Free speech" is definitionally the allowing of people to DISagree with you.
The Left has never, in all of its history, supported free speech. It has only invoked the term (using the same Orwellianism it uses with most other terms) to advance itself. Free speech, like all forms of tolerance, is definitionally right-wing, just as identity politics is definitionally left-wing.
That seems to me to be a gross overgeneralization (not to mention that it's an obviously self-serving one). Groups that have historically been defenders of free speech and related first amendment rights are generally left-leaning or bi-partisan. The ACLU comes to mind, though they have been known to waver under sufficient political pressure. Probably the staunchest group I know of currently is F.I.R.E., one of the few I contribute money to support. And they are pointedly bipartisan.
I think a more useful idea than yours is to look at multiple organizations and individuals, regardless of political affiliation/orientation, and evaluate where they stand and how they've performed in practice under pressure on free-speech issues. To the extent that a group or individual has stood up to protect free speech rights for those they personally disagree with, the higher they should be ranked as serious supporters of free speech rights.
Going the other way (determining political orientation and then judging absent specific evidence which way a group or person will fall on free-speech questions) is counterproductive. And it misses the fact that anyone can claim to be "left-wing" or the opposite, but that doesn't really tell us all that much about his/her commitment to the first amendment or anything else. In this era of political correctness and wokeness, I'm constantly being told that I'm obviously: a fascist, Trump-supporter, Republican, reactionary, etc., as well as an "obvious" communist, libtard, ad nauseam. Apparently, my opinion on my own political views isn't relevant. But if anyone cares, I see myself as a socialist and liberal ironist (see Richard Rorty's CONTINGENCY, IRONY, AND SOLIDARITY). I'm fanatically in favor of free speech and have been since before I was a teenager.
LEE, thanks for the comment on “individualism.” I’ve run across this term so much lately but still don’t have a good understanding of this take on it. I refer to DiAngelo’s and others insistence on eliminating “the ideology of individuality.” Can you enlighten me here? I’m serious. I continue to be surprised at this theme among “progressives.”
Sorry, you never disappoint - always good for a laugh - you remind me of the smart talking dog in the movie "Up", very intelligent, capable of carrying on a good conversation, but every time he sees a squirrel, his eyes go pinwheel, his intellect shuts down and he goes chasing after the squirrel, I guess I am your squirrel (of course that invokes a charge of being "nutty", but that would be a welcome change :D)
You do know, of course, that a "mythology" is a narrative ...
I knew there was a reason I don’t get it. Beyond me. Ive just long felt that communitarian movements tend to totalitarianism, so all this worries me. It’s like a fundamentalist religion where the fundamentals change weekly, and if you can’t keep up you’re a heretic.
Lee, you nailed it! Reading this piece, and others recently, I've had the same though - these folks are truly reactionary. It's funny in a way. These would be the same people condemning Barry Goldwater in the 60s as reactionary. They are what they claimed he was. They are neither liberal nor progressive. And I believe they are blind to the fact that their approach to speech rights is likely to eventually come back to bite them in the ass, as it has most reactionary forces throughout history.
Capitalism and Communism are economic theories. They are about who benefits from the means of production. Theoretical Communism is democratic in its leanings as it ultimate aim is collapse economic wealth to all workers. Its hierarchical distinctions, derived from its analysis of Capitalism, are meant to wither away as its creed is implemented. Capitalism's model of economic ownership, in ultimately distinguishing between workers and owners, is essentially hierarchical. Totalitarianism, Fascism, Democracy are political concepts. I will say that Communism's focus on the economic system with little strong proscription of a political structure, has generally allowed it to be hijacked by totalitarian tendencies. Frequently ending in the state rather than the owners controlling the means of production. Capitalism has historically developed alongside democratic political concepts and governance. This parallelism has forced capitalism to mask itself in democratic clothes, rather than openly pursue its natural tendency to concentrate power in the economic elite. To equate Communism with Totalitarianism is to give Capitalist governance a pass, and suggest a distinction that raises self proclaimed communism to a level of political tyranny that is somehow above say a Fascist state.
100% Fact. Capitalism and freedom are intrinsically bound. Capitalism relies on freedom, hence the term "free market capitalism". On the other hand, governments tend toward control, democratic or otherwise, and will always destroy the natural balance found in competing markets.
The Left have neither cultural nor institutional power in places like the US. One shouldn't conflate liberalism with socialism. Furthermore, liberals have always held power in the US, liberalism is the dominant and defining ideology of capitalism.
I'm not sure I agree with that, depending on your definition of left. Sure "workers unite" has never been a huge faction, but progressive globalists for decades have been the driving force, and you can take a tally of our media, financial, educational, tech, and foreign policy institutions and you'll find the same archetype over and over, despite this profile representing a very small slice of the populace.
Who do you disagree with? The anti-free speech brigade? The CRTers? The Left? Are these synonyms in your view or do you view that them as subsets of the Left?
If the former -- how did you confirm it?
If the latter -- isn't this just another round of dealing with the issue of the tolerance of intolerance?
Its simple, the leftists that don't believe is "free market communism" (which is basically what the Sanders ilk "believe in") are not leftists, they are fascists, like everyone else that disagrees with him.
All leftist collectivist movements end up the same way, it starts out as “we’re doing it for the oppressed masses!” and ends up as “four legs good, two legs better” and “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”, after passing through the phase of:
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
Most rural Ukrainians didn’t give a shit about Lenin one way or the other-he didn’t interfere with agriculture or village life. De-kulakization, collectivism and the Holodomor were all on Stalin.
Are you serious? There was massive peasant unrest during the Russian Civil War. Lenin collectivizing all agricultural land and tools took away almost everything they had. Add in "war communism" and unfair forced requisitions and the peasant class was pissed. There were even a few massive revolts. They even got their own color, the Greens.
"Mill ironically pointed out that “princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited deference, usually feel this complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all subjects.”" Interesting line, wouldn't you agree, Your Highness?
Keep telling yourself that the Zizeks are in any way, shape, or form relevant in today's society. That left is dead and gone in Western society, if it ever truly existed. They've been replaced by the disciples of Marcuse.
What? Workers on the board? How about worker owned with no management… that’s something I could get behind. Workers on the board are just a new board. Why bother.
You people are fucking geniuses. That's what every properly functioning organization has. Dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people making their own decisions.
"Oh but they can vote! Democracy!" As if that is a solution to anything that requires actual thought.
I have been saying for some time that the Woke of today mirror the Moral Majority that raised Reagan to power in the 80's. The only scary part is the Woke mob has far more political and financial backing.
The other irony is that in the 80's if you were a Falwell Moral Majority you were definitely a Republican, and today if you are Woke you are likely a Democrat. It's amazing how times change, and those that come for freedoms come from vastly different angles, yet have similar excuses for doing so.
I too used to listen to NPR and On the Media. When Trump was elected, I went looking for thoughtful analysis and information about what was going on, but I found nothing but rage, paranoia, and dogma everywhere: NYT, the New Yorker (I'd been an adult-lifelong subscriber and ardent fan), TV networks, my Apple News feed, all of it. Gone to the dogs.
The final straw for me with On the Media was an episode they did a couple of years ago celebrating the random destruction of the lives of anyone the mob (or a troll hoping to inspire a mob) deemed a "Karen." The laziness of embracing the term was enough to turn me off.
But the glee with which Brooke Gladstone identified one unfortunate person after another, all private citizens who had done nothing, was chilling. She was cruel, and used her broadcasting reach to wreck people. Just for fun, I guess, or to feel a jolt of power. She identified a number of people by name and city, and her guest told us why these people were racists. I guess I was naiave, but I found it shocking, and have never listened again.
Same on NYT and NY, Slate, Apple. I was embarrassed to realize I'd followed along with such lack of questioning. I realized how much I'd sort of quietly accepted an mono-voice. (I did drop the Nation when they started sponsoring cruises, tho.)
Every time I read "Karen" as a pejorative, I think of my mom's best friend, Karen, who died tragically young of pancreatic cancer. Fuck these people for turning her name into a racial insult.
I think of my sister who works for the flying doctors service in the Australian outback. Helping mostly indigenous communities. But no, her name is now an insult.
They are possessed by demons (in the sense of Dostoevsky). They are channeling the same psychic forces that in other times and places produce lynchings, pogroms and genocides. It is shocking to see it embraced as a valid media industry operating system.
Agreed. I looked into a Substack from Heather Cox Richardson the other day. I'd not heard of her but she's got a big audience. All the same third-hand outrage at Republicans, little of it coherent. Whatever--if she makes money repackaging the NYT, good for her. But the comments, of which there were hundreds, thousands, were painful to look at. All rage, about "terrorists" (Republicans) "traitors" (Republicans), "Rethuglicans" (good one). Everyone wanted to lock people up or worse. Lots of hatred towards white people (from white people). Someone wanted time in a room with FL governor DeSantis and a baseball bat, and everyone cheered. (You know, because of masks). Someone else made a clever joke about lube (related to the bat) and people howled. They loved it. No question these people would line up for pitchforks if they weren't afraid to leave their homes.
I like the pitchforks line, but I think these people would be more into denouncing, preferably followed by the denounced being hauled off in the night for some manner of re-education experience. They are an aggressive bunch, but I have a hard time imagining them picking up the pitchforks themselves. They're more like a bunch of kids who can't wait to tell the teacher that you've been breaking the rules, except they want the teacher to ship you to Gitmo.
I wonder if they realize what a dangerous game they are playing. If things ever do blow up they might find their enemies have kept lists of things they have said. Historically speaking, the results are usually not pretty. Another problem is it is getting harder to tell the difference between serious and violent assholes, simple trolls, short term hot heads, sarcastic jokers, and simple misunderstandings. This might not end well and not only for the vitriolic pricks
Passive aggressive blather from the safety of a message board. These are the same people who stopped Yahoo & other sites from having comments on their "news" items because mean comments made them turn fetal as they furiously searched for their thumbs to suck. In anything other than a mob they'd wet themselves. Every single one of them talk a talk they could never walk in a million years. It's why they don't carry their BLM gospel to gangsta land. Some shitlib Kamala would shove a smartphone in Mr. Gangsta's face screaming "SAY BLACK LIVES MATTER! SAY BLACK LIVES MATTER!" & Mr. Gangsta would shove a Glock in Kamala's face and say BOOM!. End of Kamala. End of protest.
That's what terrifies me, Ned. The horrible propaganda from MSM is one thing. But the comments section in the NYT and similar outlets is truly horrifying. The comments for Krugman's recent "The Rage of the Responsible" fact-free diatribe was something else. The hate, the rage, the advocacy for violence. And they really think they're on the morally righteous side of all of these debates.
I'm no expert on FD but I have read all the books. However, I read them before I really knew the historical context. It's quite startling how FD predicted the revolution w/o knowing that is what he was doing of course. I tried to find this movie and I did find it at Soviet Movies online then found a few clips on You Tube. Stavrogin is exactly how he seemed in the book. The main action was based on a true story FD read in the newspaper. It might be one of the more difficult books I have read because to fully understand it I had to study up on the history of Russia at the time. I had the time during COVID to finally make all the connections.I'd read C&P and BK but not Demons. I think it may be the best of all. Tho the Idiot is close.
Ned, you lasted longer than I did. I bailed out at the very beginning of the Trump era, still in the primary campaigns. Bob Garfield announced that Trump represented such a consummate evil and threat to humanity that he, Bob Garfield, would no long maintain any pretense of journalistic objectivity. His job thenceforth as a journalist would be to fight this evil.
Well, Trump is gone and I read that so is Bob. He was fired for "violated the company's anti-bullying policy".
New Yorker had lost its luster, but after I was interviewed and found out what a twisted joke their "fact checking" was, I lost all respect for them. I had lost respect for NYT years before after I tried several times to correct egregious errors in news stories overseas and they were anti-interested. I view all journalism today as suspect - no matter who does it. One reason for this is that most journalists today just don't make enough money, and haven't got the budget to do real research on stories.
Matt Taibbi is quite good. He tries hard, and he's smart enough and experienced enough to do quite well. With a real budget and higher salary, who knows what he might do?
Interesting! I'd love to know why you were interviewed. The New Yorker used to be famous for its fact-checking, but no more. Last year, Jill Lapore wrote in the NY that two-thirds of ER visits among young people resulted from police violence. Really? I've been to emergency rooms. People crash motorcycles and skateboards and drop cinderblocks on their toes, but very few are beaten by police. That this made it past the editors shows how lost they are at the New Yorker. (The actual number is closer to .2%.)
One of my aha moments came a few years ago when Jia Tolentino wrote, in an article about incels (remember them? they were before murder hornets) that "a rich straight white man" will always "find ways to get laid." Huh? Her article was about a rich, straight white man who was so angry at being rejected by women that he killed someone.
Last year, in a typical throwaway, Bill McKibbon wrote in the New Yorker about his home state of Vermont: "As has been the case across the nation, the state’s population of color has been disproportionately hit." Follow his link and we see that non-whites died at LOWER rates than the overall population. They just make stuff up. (I wrote about this article in "Attitude or Climate in Vermont? The New Yorker Credits Folksiness over Science." A link is near my name above.)
Almost all of the press is bad, and in all the same ways, but I feel especially betrayed by the New Yorker, as it used to be a place of great writers—E.B. White, J.D. Salinger, John Hersey, Nabokov, John McPhee, thousands of them. Now it's Keeanga-Yahmahtta Taylor writing the word "racism" 21 times in an article about a virus.
Anthony Mir writes about what happened to media in a book called Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers. The media after Trump: Manufacturing Anger and Polarization. I did not post here initially for eyeballs, but I've had something to say about most of the publications people have expressed frustrations with here, so, if you're curious, you can scroll through the titles from the link above for your favorite target.
I'll post just one piece, about my wayward New Yorker. I touch on the low-pay-in-journalism problem in it:
Try the Epoch Times which includes Epoch TV. The American Thought Leaders, Kaschs Corner, and other shows on there very well done and have most excellent guest interviews. I'm just a subscriber...but highly recommend the printes paper as well as the app and the Epoch TV portion. Well worth the subscription price.
Again, brilliant analysis. I haven’t financially supported PBS or NPR in years. My monies and support are better spent on Substack and other forums that support what we used to call mainstream. These days the only voice we seem to have is our dollars. Vote with your dollars.
There is one good public radio station, WBJC in Baltimore. They dropped NPR several decades ago, and play classical music 24 hours a day, except for brief AP updates during rush hour. We have supported them for many years, and now listen on the web as we moved away from Maryland.
I agree with this concept generally but I have a little bit of misplaced confusion in regard to NPR. If you look at the correlation of where NPR gets its money from, relative to how bad their "journalism" (or whatever the proper term is for their product now) there is a pretty good trend that as the % of their funding come from fewer larger private donors things go from good (depending on your opinion) to really really disastrously bad. Now it is true some correlations are spurious and this may be one of them. But if it is not, then by pulling out our small individual funding are we continuing the trend and making things worse? I mean I stopped my NPR donations too, and I know not what the right answer is, I am just voicing an unresolved thought that has been plaguing me for a couple of years now in the hopes that someone with better perspective on this issue might see it and provide me with some better food-for-thought to resolve it.
This is why I subscribed. Very few have the standing and ability to deconstruct so thoroughly the moronic state of NPR and our corporate media today.
The media has been so captured by grifters like Kendi and DiAngelo that they’re basically empty parodies of themselves. I would have more respect if they just came out and said the new speech laws would be applied according to race and an oppression index.
Of course; I meant that in the classic sense of shitty programming getting cancelled from the rotation and not the woke version of it.
SNL hasn't made a good skit since the mid 90s and in 2016 when everyone fell over themselves to gawk, point and laugh like hyenas at half of the country's malcontent they jumped right on the low fruit gravy train. Here's a hint to up-and-coming comedy writers: When your writing resembles a political party's hard line... it's not comedy anymore.
"The media has been so captured by grifters like Kendi and DiAngelo"
Its so true, but I just can't figure out why. Its certainly not on the merits of their arguments, theories, or outcomes of their prescriptions. This makes it hard not to entertain conspiracy theories as I am lost trying to come up with how and why these people are given anything more than a polite smile by the rest of society as it passes by them sitting in their own metaphorical little "corner of crazy" from where they are mostly ignored by sane society.
Any amount of time you spend, Matt, describing just how awful NPR has become, is time well spent. I am being quite serious. Getting a root canal done is positively enjoyable compared to listening to NPR.
I want to be scrupulously honest here. I am referring to undergoing a root canal with use of Novocain. Have done it many times. It's not that bad. Without Novocain, though, chances are I would nonetheless prefer to spend the equivalent amount of time listening to NPR.
I’ve been teaching law in China for the past 11 years, and what strikes me the hardest about the NPR segment you describe is how the anti-free speech advocates sound just like the Chinese Communist party-line.
Communitarians vs individuals. I am not defined by the groups you try to put me into. I am an individual with GOD GIVEN RIGHTS. These rights DO NOT come from the state.
"Collective" and "individual" are not concepts to be pitted in a death struggle against each other. They're a dialectic to be negotiated, by individuals living among each other in groups. As for "communitarian", well, one should only hope. "Communitarian" means that neighbors care enough about each other to help each other out.
If you have individual rights, then so does everybody else. You don't get to do the "rights" thing while disregarding the rights of other people.
I also have to say that, someone hollering about their "God Given rights" falls on my ears sort of strangely. It's suspicious to play that card, like a mugger playing a Murphy game- tackling someone to steal their wallet while claiming to be police making an arrest. Using ALL CAPS doesn't help that impression.
I happen to love the “moronic American creed”, I am proud of the “moronic” American flag, I enjoy singing heartily the “moronic” American anthem. Sorry, I am an individual first and foremost and am responsible for decisions I make and groups I “join” however groups I have no say over AKA white male etc do not define me
Thank you !! But there is a difference in -- RESULTS. Manufacturing didn't just move to China by itself -- it was enthusiastically exported to China in the name of profits...
Financial Times -- July 8, 2021:
“China’s emergence over the past four decades ranks as the biggest and longest-run economic boom in history. Its annual gross domestic product rose from a mere $191 B, or $195 per capita, in 1980 to $14.3 T, or $10,261 per capita, in 2019.
It has raised more than 770m people from poverty and transformed the Chinese economy into a high-tech powerhouse that is on course to eclipse America’s in size. This transformation is the landmark achievement of the Chinese Communist party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday.”
China literally started at a baseline of famine still being a real worry in 1977 when Deng Xiaoping took over to their current growth. People want normal stuff-and if a billion people are held back from getting that and then let off the chain, of course growth is going to be off the charts spectacular. It’s like comparing the growth of a baby to that of a late teenager. All China’s authoritarian bs is just ultra-efficiency-human rights and freedoms be damned-it has nothing to do w/ economics. Deng Xiaoping saw the CCP as an efficient governing structure, not as an ideological organization per se.
They still have some Communist beliefs and policies, but their main philosophy is pragmatic authoritarian nationalism. Maybe they found what Sun Yat-sen was looking for all along, a world power united China? I am not a fan of the CCP, but I find them to be anything but stupid.
Well, China also provided policy support. For instance, China set out to educate a wild surplus of engineers, and did so. This was done because of recognizing that engineering ability was the foundation of the real economy's wealth. Steve Jobs referenced that when he said, "Those jobs aren't coming back," meaning Apple manufacturing. The reason was simple. In China it was easy to find 30,000 engineers required to output a new product line. In the USA it was impossible. It wasn't just a matter of salaries. Those salaries, when amortized over huge production runs are not a big cost. The problem was he couldn't find them, and that meant products didn't happen, or they happened years later, which would make Apple a middle of the pack company.
YES - thank you. Most of the "philosophers" on this site have little understanding of even basics on China -- beyond the standard war party propaganda..
On The Media was always an NPR outlier for me. A usually perceptive peek inside the meta narratives that I've been interested in since studying McLuhan in high school. I had to stop listening around the Trump era because it drifted into the dishonest space you identified above. So sad and weird.
What is going on with the smart people in America? At a minimum they should be suspicious of the certainty of their beliefs. Anyone who isn't shouldn't dare consider themselves part of any intelligentsia.
You want to fix it? First step, make it free to anyone who qualifies. Germany does this. American students can go to German universities for free too - if they qualify.
What does this do? It removes the student as customer financial motive for universities. It ends social promotion.
As someone who has taught at universities in the USA in the current era, I don't think it's broken. I think it is damaged, but engineering and sciences are fair to pretty good. Those subjects are badly (or horribly) taught at the "best" universities far too often, because researchers don't want to teach and generally never taught how. Better off to get your lower division basics at a good community college or 4 year university where faculty are paid to teach and rated on teaching ability.
We need it back the way it was when a good university education was practically free so that the administrators aren't pushing for social promotion.
That dishonest space existed on NPR for a long time prior to Trump. The thing is, you’ve escaped it. Looks like they’ve decided that the only way that they can get you back now is to silence their critics, so that there is no alternative. But make no mistake, they never changed. You did.
The smart people mostly seem to be playing along with all of it, even if it means being completely insincere. They don't want their names on lists. Speaking truth to power apparently is way out of fashion. All this tends to argue that, in aggregate, we don't actually deserve what this country was designed to be. That would require some actual courage.
Well, I hate to tell you this, Matt. But maybe you'll finally get on board with what a threat to freedom these elitist far left people are. I taught at a university in Michigan and saw this coming for decades really, but the last ten years like a freight train. This is going to get ugly. They plan to silence and demonize anyone who doesn't agree with them. In America! she gives THEM the platform and the right to say the idiot things that come out of their mouth!! What incredible irony. Wow. But this takes my breath away.
I attended grad school at a big 10 uni from 1989-1991. Sitting in the student lounge between classes--where one could smoke (!)-- was like being a spy at a gathering of epicene creeps declaring that when "we're in charge" anyone who disagrees will be lined up against a wall and shot. They were always faux enraged by something as expressed by rolling eyes, sneers, and pre-fabbed opinions. Never an original view or insight or humor. Utter bores with ultra sensitive antennae twitching at the slightest deviation in thought and lips curling at laughter they could not understand. I fucking hated that place.
Ha. You've pretty much nailed it. I was there all together about ten years and this is about dead on. Think of comedians these days. Maybe some of them are getting it. Maher, Tim Allen. Seinfeld. Love to see how they fare under the Truth Czar. Been a while since universities were places for free exchange of ideas. I was published, then cancelled at a literary publication at Wayne State -- back before 1950, certainly before 1900, most literary contemporary writers came from all walks of life and many had REAL jobs -- same with politicians. Now they all come out of MFA programs. These career influencers, media, university professors, Hollywood, have never been in the real world. And they have NO sense of humor.
>>>They are going to find that victimhood is currency really just in the university, not in the real world.>>>
This is no longer true. Corporations are all getting strong-armed by a small number of extremely powerful institutional investors (Vanguard, Blackrock, Fidelity) into hiring Diversity, Equity & Inclusion officers. Guess what their purpose is? It's to serve as a pipeline to spread the cancer from university social sciences departments directly into corporations via the HR function.
It's metastasizing quickly. This is why you hear about e.g. the Coca Cola company instructing their employees to "be less white".
Journalist has never been a working class job. Reporter was. Editor is. Journalist is the byproduct of J-school grads seeking a credentialed "profession" like lawyer or doctor, without the relatively hard work.
Completely true. This is why there are lese majeste laws in absolute monarchies — “only dictators can’t be made fun of”. Humor reveals the emperor’s nudity.
Yes, and I'm sure it's not the worst place, either. But really, this was creeping up for decades. One political position is published. What I hope is that people who understand that America was founded on free speech will bond together. They had fist fights on the floor of congress. That is what America is. And what made her great. If you don't hear anyone disagree with you, you better worry. These people don't get that -- actually the politicians do, but they think their ideas, their ends justify any means. And it doesn't.
Love this turn of phrase "It’s unsurprising that NPR — whose tone these days is so precious and exclusive that five minutes of listening to any segment makes you feel like you’re wearing a cucumber mask at a Plaza spa"
Trump broke On The Media. I sheepishly admit that it used to be my favorite radio program. During the 2016 election, they went all in on the inevitability of Clinton and ran bizarre “What if” reading of Atlantic articles about the implosion of the US if Trump was elected and Bob went on rants about how stupid it was to believe that either Trump or Sanders could win. When Trump won, rather than taking it as a sign that their entire understanding of the media was wrong, they doubled down and retreated fully into the NYC to DC corridor media bubble. And then they Me Too’d Bob. Full TDS.
Once again, I am reminded that my $50 a year for Matt's columns is a bargain and money well spent. Let's see, our modern progressive elites come mostly from elite educational institutions that for years have imposed speech codes. Our progressive "betters" solemnly swore that speech codes were about protecting the rights of everyone. Of course, now we are told that individual rights themselves are the REAL problem and that once we get rid of individual rights, then our society can experience "wholeness."
Matt: An exceptional column. Among your best. I'd go further than hammering just NPR though. The Dems, especially through social media, are suppressing free speech. Remember the Wuhan Lab Theory that was not PERMITTED for a year (wish I could italicize)?! Or how the press refused to allow the Hunter Biden laptop story out from its suppression of the NY Post's story? There are speech codes on campuses and forced reeducation and struggle sessions--mostly directed at white people--under the name of "equity". I doubt there is one conservative or Republican who is in favor of speech codes. But to return to NPR: it has become well-nigh unlistenable. Thanks for taking the hit for me.
Interestingly universal vaccination as a way to reach herd immunity is now being seen as a failure by the head of the Oxford vaccine team in the UK. He says everyone will get COVID. This is still being denied and deplatformed here but watch for them to turn on a dime and screech,”No one EveR clAimed vacCines wouLd reDuce infeCTions!” They’re already doing it to soften the beachhead.
At the beginning it was clear(to me and other sentient beings) that a highly infectious respiratory virus with a long latency period would go through the entire population. Period.
And that feels even more like a betrayal, doesn't it ? Something that, at *one time, was a gem in a desert of hate and room-temperature IQs *devolves into something too embarrassing to recommend to college students anymore ?
Ugh. Awful. I used to listen to NPR every day but stopped by mid-2018. They used Trump's "good people on both sides" statement as proof that he was a racist, stated that they will call him a racist going forward and never looked back. When the fact checking came out about what was really said and in what context, they doubled down. I am not now, nor ever have been, a Trump supporter. Ever. But that sort of open bias championing was too much for me to stand any more. I used to believe if I wanted a straight story on something - especially if it was controversial - I'd go to NPR.
It's also worth noting that they managed to take swipes at Trump as well as inferring (implying?) that the populism that got him elected was at its core racist and homophobic.
I think it's interesting how counter productive it was for the left media to slavishly paint Trump, the GOP, the right, and populists as racists. As a conservative I have completely turned it out, and I think most on the right have too. It's just noise. The trouble is that it makes it difficult for reports of true racism to land. You can only cry wolf so many times.
Exactly. I got into an argument with someone about this same topic. If everything is racist, nothing is. It allows for real racism to hide in plain sight.
I still tune in to NPR occasionally just to find out what the "official" news is about. Although the identity issues always seem to predominate ,it is interesting to see how they project foreign issues with the same insipid narrative....a lot of hand wringing about Afghanistan, but no dissident views about how we got there, let alone any discussion about the stranglehold military contractors have on US foreign policy.
That really is the most fascinating thing about the totalitarian neoliberal coup over our country: how quickly it became verboten to question the motives of classic left-wing villains like billionaires, defense contractors, law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Somehow an amorphous blob of rural rednecks with zero political or institutional power are the cause of all problems in a world dominated by the corporate left.
And, for some insane reason, otherwise intelligent and educated people BELIEVE it!
Yeah NPR is not really interested in really looking at anything that the elites like. Say defense contracts. We have unemployed factory workers in Ohio to treat as alien monsters first, before we worry about actual government dysfunction. Trump is/was a symptom of a dysfunction that stretches far beyond either party.
I was just arguing with a friend that NPR has become a progressive circle jerk masquerading as our guardians of truth. Whenever they talk about COVID, antiracism, the limits of free speech or basically anything else, I feel like a right wing nut job (which apparently nowadays is the center).
Center implies equal distance from the edges. Somehow, I get called both a socialist and a Trumper...there is no continuum. Us sane folk, who don't buy either fringe's crap nor what passes for "centrist", are rarely acknowledged let alone invited to the table...
Thanks, Matt, for doing the heavy lifting
in bringing sanity and ETHICS/PRINCIPLES back into American discourse.
Have the slightest concern about "cancel culture" or the healthiness of our current mob of social media puritans. You must love Tucker Carlson and watch him every night! The whole "you either 100% with us, or you are a nazi" shit has got to eventually backfire. Sometimes the left is so crazy I seriously wonder if its advocates people are like paid stooges for the far right or something. Which is stupid of course the right has always had its crazies, but I am starting to feel more and more surrounded by crazies. It is not a pleasant feeling...clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. I hope I get out of here with my ears!
See, that’s the problem, they have gotten *you* to feel like a nut job, when in reality *they* are the nut jobs. Fear of being cast out of the tribe is a primary human motivator for obvious evolutionary reasons, and progressivism preys upon that.
A time is coming when people will go mad and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, “You are mad, you are not like us.” - Saint Anthony the Great
Problem is, they control massive bandwidth. Although not nearly as important as they were pre-Internet, they still cause too many minds to completely close off from the debates necessary for a healthy democracy.
Joke's on us. How do we fix it? Maybe the answer lies in a continued, focused attack on their beyond-the-pale pretense to being "public" radio
So Americans are expected to have their tax dollars spent on a station that advocates for censorship. Congress might be better served IF they totally defunded most grants to these types of outlets. Let them survive on their own if the public is interested in listening to their neo-Nazi rational for truncating another speech. There will probably always be a debate about the limits of "free" speech. Problem is outlets like NPR don't debate they propagandize most subjects --- and with our money. This usually boring and ideological station could not live without the gov't throwing money at it. It has devolved into a gaggle of woke ideologues without a clue.
While I sympathize with your sentiments, this kind of "vengeance is mine" shtick is kind of a joke, *every time it comes up, which is more often than people seem to know. NPR, and PBS derive less than 2% of their budget from taxpayers. The rest comes from deep pocket foundations, donors, and others. I absolutely *love their "Nova" program, but it *does make my anal sphincter "clutch" a bit every time I see them credit "David Koch" (Founder of ALEC, even as dead as he IS) for his *major contributions to whitewashing ..... ahem, .... I mean, to science. So, both stations *could easily let the taxpayers go soak their heads while the other 98%+ of the deep pocket funders are asked to "make up" the less than 2% difference. Sorry.
What an idiotic response! This is what's called "an opinion" involving "free speech". Clearly you missed the point of Matt's article and comments like the above!
You absolutely get to say as many stupid and vapid things as you'd like. Your free speech doesn't make it sensible or meaningful or thoughtful or wise.
The corporate donations ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE. Which lowers the public fisc, and forces the common man to pay more than his fair share of taxes. Tax the donations, Tax NPR.
Hello amigo😎 After reading Matt's insightful musings about listening to a one-sided pseudo debate on public radio earlier, and sort of skipped through some of the comments (ostensibly responding to it) I find myself empathizing with your observation
that a "vengeance is mine shtick" seems to have garnered favor. I did not read anything in Matt's narrative that baited such a digression, but this level of censorious vengeance🐍 does seem a tad absurd in response to his clear advocacy for a fair and balanced discussion of free speech. 🙄
Anyway, I also often enjoy NOVA, as well as the FRONTLINE series; plus, the two Bay Area PBS stations have some quality local programing; and as you factually stated only 2% of public radio & TV funding is by the Federal Gov't. There was one comment early on that made a very astute reference to Associate Justice Louis Brandeis, who wrote what has been heralded as the greatest defense of our freedom of speech ever written since the founding. The legal case at bar is worth looking up and reading: Whitney vs California. 👴
It was pointed out to me recently that the gist of this movement, whether it be critical race theory or this anti-free speech brigade, is reactionary. They fully reject the Civil Rights Movement in favor of identity group segregation and go even further to assert that individual rights should be demoted below those of the collective or done away with altogether.
This article cements that argument in my head.
The Left supported free speech until they got what they wanted, institutional and cultural power. Now they want to do away with it because it threatens them. They will disguise their desire to do so with claims of "It's to protect you!" but ultimately, it's all about them and eliminating their opposition.
It should be pointed out that the "End of History" has been claimed before, usually with horrific results.
You have written the exact definition of them : "identity group segregation"
They are communists. There is no debate here.
Except for the bit about being billionaire financiers and corporatists.
Do you actually believe communism reduces wealth at the top and shrinks income inequality?
'Communism', 'socialism', 'democracy'... all ideals rarely realized before the psycho/socio-pathic among us commandeer the system into a plutocracy of some sort. Human nature?
Exactly. *In practice*, ALL political and economic systems -- including capitalism, feudalism, etc. -- suffer the same entropy: The more capable + more sociopathic actors learn how to effect, and then execute, a concentration of power until the system grinds to a halt and cracks up. Communists are just more efficient about it. Wash, rinse, repeat.
That's what we have to figure out how to correct: Concentration of power. However, with ever-increasing power embodied in technologies (of all kinds), we might, unfortunately, be past the point of no return.
I think you are very right about dangers of power and our need to oppose it generally, but very wrong about tech. Let’s take a few largely centralized technologies and see how they don’t have to be that way.
There is nothing magical about commercial or government internet service providers that makes them necessary to run the internet. America has hundreds of community owned internet service providers that are largely faster and cheaper than the commercial options: https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3np4a/new-municipal-broadband-map
Now that we have established the idea that we can own and control the internet, why not just own and control social media ourselves? https://itsfoss.com/mainstream-social-media-alternaives/
Oh and let’s not forget Linux - arguably the worlds best operating systems are Linux, and they are free open source made by hippies for everyone.
Now let’s talk about some more serious technological monopolies. What about energy? Well, green energy lets us all own our own power plant if we have a house, and we can get into a community energy trust in an apartment. Not only can you buy solar panels and wind turbines, but you can make your own cheap wind turbine https://opensourcelowtech.org/wind_turbine.html or make your own ethanol at home or with your neighbors https://survivallife.com/how-make-own-ethanol-gas/ Now we have our own energy - green energy as primary, and ethanol to fill in the gaps.
Now let’s really piss of the rulers - we don’t need them to manufacture our medicine. Sure, patent law and the FDA to send us to prison if we make our own, but it’s very possible to do so. https://openinsulin.org/ and https://fourthievesvinegar.org/ are examples of people doing that. Make your own cure for hep C or your own insulin - yeah, you can do that. Don’t need big pharma either.
They can try to take away our guns, but we can make those too. https://ghostguns.com/product-category/3d-print/
How about the money monopoly? Crypto is already a massive success and the blockchain options just keep expanding.
I could go on, but the point still stands; nothing about modern technology is necessitating that we have centralized power controlling it. On the contrary; we have more power than ever to live high tech lives without centralized manufacturing, control, ownership, or authority. I think the rulers are really afraid we will figure this out - it’s important that they label everything I just talked about as something for libertarian crazies, because they are scared to death that it spreads and we take control of our own economic and technological lives.
Great book on the subject - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/kevin-carson-the-homebrew-industrial-revolution
Which is to say communism is less efficient at it as they tend to get to the end state faster, even acknowledging the huge push capitalism gives them.
Blended economies with elements of capitalism tend to do the best, so long as they manage corruption.
This is why, even though I am largely libertarian, I don’t think an actual libertarian state can exist. Even if you started off with the absolute minimal level of government, whoever was in that government would eventually get the bright idea that they could do SO MUCH MORE TO HELP PEOPLE if only they had more power, and it would devolve from there.
Word. And H/T
Raised and educated by phones.
In wild-frog years
Communisms by definition is about the socialization of the means of production. These people wish to privately own the means of production themselves and are therefore by definition not communists. They are some sort of: neo-feudalists, totalitarian aristocrats, or plutocrats.
Except that - in practice, if not definition - socialism inviariably leads to monopolistic oligarchy which primarily benefits wealthy capitalists. Show me a socialist nation and I'll show you half a dozen families who own the majority of that country.
If it does - it wasn't socialism. These are all discreet definitions. They are not a continuum.
Hmm. Communism can be modeled as a 100% tax rate with all payments as social welfare. China has done a quite good job of things in the past 30 years. Rather amazing really. I'm even liking this latest crackdown on giant tech companies -- imagine a nation that wants to ensure prosperity is shared by almost everyone. Shocking. We used to do that.
You're totally right about communism. However, I've never heard a communist or Marxist admit that its been tried or failed before, so I am not sure how its defined is actually important. When it fails, its not real.
The definition of communism has nothing whatever to do with the unarguable fact that countries that have called themselves communist have not me the definition of communism. So yes, in that sense there was a labeling attempt that failed.
Was the USSR communist? If it was it must have been a stateless society where all the people are considered equal and treated equally is known as Communism.
The same with China.
Yeah, but every attempt has been met with as brutal a response from global capitalism as they could without killing us all in a nuclear war.
It's like saying somebody can't drive because the rich guy up the street sends groups of drivers out to crash into you every time you pull out of the driveway.
At any route, capitalism is about done, there isn't enough planet left to keep doubling the economy, so we are either going to have to figure out some kind of planned economy compromise, or get used to fighting marauders over dwindling guzzoline.
correct
Financial Times -- July 8, 2021:
“China’s emergence over the past four decades ranks as the biggest and longest-run economic boom in history. Its annual gross domestic product rose from a mere $191 B, or $195 per capita, in 1980 to $14.3 T, or $10,261 per capita, in 2019.
It has raised more than 770m people from poverty and transformed the Chinese economy into a high-tech powerhouse that is on course to eclipse America’s in size. This transformation is the landmark achievement of the Chinese Communist party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday.”
Not quite: "This transformation is the landmark achievement of Capitalism."
I have to agree with Exhausted. China goes 60 years with real communism and kills millions of its own citizens with purges and famines. Cultural Revolution, anybody? They go (state) capitalist and in 40 years they’re a world player. I think Boris’ citation proves EM’s point.
Nailed it. Its curious that people mix up governments and market so readily. As if the US is a free market system and the Communist Chinese system is purely command and control. At the bottom, the a Chinese citizen could appear to have more freedom than a poor person in the US. 1500 hours of "school" to braid hair for a living in the US. This thing is nothing but gatekeepers, even if the gatekeeper isnt the state.
China is a mingling of Socialism and Capitalism, but the ultimate economic power rests with a government interested in bringing its people out of poverty. Capitalists are working within an essentially socialist system. Capitalism is where the profiteers either keep the government out of their business* or they, as now, control the government. The free market was always where the strong devoured the weak, and that now goes on with massive government aid e.g. bailouts.
*Investopedia: "Businesses and services are free of government control."
In China the govt quietly steps in when the usual abuse from Capitalist greed goes to far. Businessmen in China do not scorn govt as their tool, but rightly fear it as an obstacle to their desire to milk workers, consumers and tenants of every last dime.
As I pointed out above, isn't this capitalism/communism debate silly at this point? Trapped in the 19th Century and all that? What matters is who get's to hold the reins--reigns.
@boris The cost of this "progress", both human cost and the cost to the environment, in China and elsewhere is yet to be paid. Inequality in China is similar to the US and Brazil. Germany was destroyed after WW2, it's population decimated, yet by 1970s it had already surpassed the US in terms of prosperity and the quality of life. In terms of quality of life, in ones, GDP, freedoms, almost all European countries are decades of not centuries ahead of primitive economies and cultures like China or the US that are based on exploitation of human capital.
hmm -- remember before this incredible and in human history unprecedented success (800M people lifted our of abject poverty) -- every ten years or so about 10M Chinese died from starvation....
Haha. This fucking guy.
On the backs of western innovation, they have done marvelous things when measured in this way.
Most Western Innovation was paid for at least in part if not whole by socialized research. The final adaptions to make things into market ready products are all private sector, but that is usually the least of all the innovation. Most private sector innovation is about figuring out the PR and such to sell people on products they otherwise wouldn't want or need. Indeed if you follow the money that is where most of the money in the private sector research and innovation fields have gone in the US over the last 100 or so years.
Ohh - now I see -- thank you for your thoughtful explanation...
But Communist China has a population of around 1,450 million. So 750 million have NOT been raised out of poverty.
This is in fact well known. Many rural people moved to urban areas, but cannot get regular employment because the CCP never approved their move to the urban area, and they have no valid ID to work there.
How is the poverty rate in China vs the US?
Thank you for your uninformed BS -- for pulling your "facts" out of your ass. Try to learn basic public facts before spreading your China-hatred.
Growth is easy, profitability is not.
China is quickly heading for a collapsed bubble that will make the Japanese zombie banks of the 1990's look flush with cash.
Their population collapse with amplify this. Right now there are ~16 million persons in each age group 1 to 25 and 21 million in each age group 40 to 65. The population would be decreasing now if Mao had not killed off ~60 million people.
Unless they can undo the damage of the one-child policy and return to a fertility rate of at least 2.2 from their current 1.7 children per woman, they will lose at least 500 million people by 2100
Do you actually believe the nomenklatura were mostly the families of czarist Grand Dukes or might there have been different groups involved?
I would imagine in a political environment such as this (and that), its anyone who can effectively toe the line.
You're just disagreeing to disagree. What I'm saying is this isn't "Communism" in the Red Scare sense because billionaires are pushing this and they absolutely believe in their OWN private property. They're happy to take the property of others, though.
Anthony Sutton, a professor back in the 70s, has written lengths about this apparent contradiction, for instance in "Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution".
There is a strain of person that thinks the world is their oyster and the people in it are stupid and/or underserving, and they'll use any system that is convenient to bring it to heel.
These people usually end up being ruthlessly hated, for good cause.
I think what we are seeing is actually a sort of Hegelian synthesis of communism and nazism. And I specify nazism intentionally due to the racial elements and other factors.
I should comment, he also wrote "Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler". That one is on deck.
A bit boring and overly academic, but some interesting history.
Well, he is right. Most people are stupid. We run into problem when these people try and fix this.
Also, how to reconcile that statement with the global IQ gains over the last 120 years?
Ha! You think IQ means something? You probably follow the Covid case count very closely as well.
Is he? How have you determined it?
Sounds like self-enhancement bias and related narcissistic cognitive distortion to me.
You appear to be proof positive of this. You really think you got it going on but then you slip into all the same traps. “What about increasing IQs” 🤣🤣🤣
I would reject your assertion, but it’s so haphazard and manic to be met with a logical response is simply impossible.
I suggest getting a sweat in, or enjoying a sunset, or perhaps back away from the yayo and/or talk to a mental health expert.
*the dumbest people in any advanced nation, are unable to keep up with what is going on in the world."
*No one* is able to keep up with what is going on in the world, most notably TPTB. Exhibit A: Our Dear Leader. Part of that problem is the illusion that *knowledge* is possible, when in fact only *belief* ever is. It's in the nature of limited and imperfect human beings. Which means, regarding democracy, that you can't separate the capable from non-capable. There are court jesters and village idiots who have insights, and geniuses who have blind spots.
Meanwhile, *all* have equal moral value. If you're a sociopath, you probably won't believe or even understand that last point. (U.S.) Democracy is usually misinterpreted as aggregate *functional* decision-making, but it's value is more like aggregate *moral* decision-making (judging people not policies, however imperfect the method) ... which is one reason why it is implemented with *representatives*.
What you're describing as inevitable is the re-emergence of sociopathic rule. So I'd look again at why it was defeated so many times.
I was kinda with ya on the first paragraph, was looking forward to the next, and....then it was kinda all over the place.
This man wish death and violence onto people regularly. He will be on the news for something radical soon enough.
A wonderful example of irony.
This is the moment when the chick in the bar backs away.
Hilarious response even w/o knowing what 'deleted' had to say!
I've spent many years flicking and batting away assertions that so-and-so is a communist because of some mildly leftish utterance. But in this case, I'd almost have to agree that these particular so-and-so's are -- in a general sense -- just what you say.
I get it. The real whopper is the realization that they are same people just enabled in more radical ways.
By your logic a slave colony is communism. And gosh, you are right, except these plantation masters got there though the back door--neoliberal capitalism. Funny that.
The truth is the communism/capitalism debate is an empty vessel and a relic of history. (Except as a tool for bad faith arguments.)
Something a commie would say for sure.
Like I was saying...
See some of the comments by others below. They get it.
"Christ, I will be glad when the rivers run with your blood."
Hello?
What is a communist? Can you define it? How is a communist different than a socialist or a Marxist?
:-D No. They are just regular ol' people who mostly fell into that slot the way others fell int Rush Limbaugh. Now NPR has talk radio that makes people froth at the mouth too.
They don't believe in individual rights? We are raising kids this way somewhere in the chain. They put us all in danger and I think its time we start talking plainly about this reality.
1 Trump and GOP are truly HORRIBLE.
2 DNC oligarchs (Biden, Pelosi, Schumer) are even WORSE (censorship, they concocted Russia-gate hoax, torture of Julian Assange, Daniel Hale’s persecution for Obama’s drone crimes, $16+B Haiti-corruption under Hillary/Obama – Biden-family corruption pales in comparison)
The ONLY solution – vote THIRD party – now and forever. ALWAYS vote – but VOTE for a Third (or fourth, fifth..) party – at ALL levels, especially at LOCAL levels (vote OUT each and every incumbent).
“If you always vote for the lesser of two evils, you will always have evil, and you will always have less.” [Ralph Nader].
Only ACTION: Sustained organized mass civil disobedience - not distractions like DNC-controlled hollering and tweeting....
PS: Can we be perfectly clear who "won" in Afghanistan? Lockheed, Boeing, Raytheon, and their "shareholders" (70%+ of "shareholders" are just Wall Street and DC parasitic “blob” + Congress scumbags)
I got news for you, Trump is a 3rd party ..working within the 2 party system. He's an outsider that the RNC hates with a passion. I see that as a good thing.
Yeah. It worked out really well for him and Bernie.
It's not inaccurate to call them Marxists, with their line of reasoning.
Perhaps also US form of government -- corporate socialism...
That description is used way too loosely and is why I agreed only in a general way. A Marxist at minimum would have to be someone who has actually studied Marx -- a lengthy, difficult task -- and buys into the basic ideas, including the inevitability of a global "dictatorship of the proletariat." Any old loopy, self-contracicting line of reasoning doesn't fit the bill.
I doubt whether any of these clowns have read any Marx and they certainly have nothing but disdain for the proletariat, or what they call "a basket of deplorables." They clearly want to put self-appointed elites like themselves in charge.
In a popular sense, though, "communist" is a better term, given the elite-dominated system that described itself as such in the Soviet Union and currently claims the title in China. But even in these two cases the term isn't technically true since no one can reasonably argue that ordinary working people were or are running the show in those countries.
Aren't there a couple of politicians in Portland Oregon that actually describe themselves as followers of Trotsky? I seem to remember reading that at one point.
I agree with much of what you say. I think the average Antifa person (since they are not a group and have no membership or whatever the belief of the naïve is today), isn't intelligent enough to even know why they are out in the streets beating up old people and threatening violence to those that disagree with them. By extension the average Proud individual fighting the non-group in the streets has a similar issue and throws around parrot phrases for giggles.
I'd personally say the world we are now living in where companies and corporations dictate what people can and can't do, or whether they have vaccines or not to be a part of earning money is far more Mussolini than anything else.
It's looking a bit like that. The difference -- and maybe it's a minor one -- is that the leftie share of this lunacy is more about tearing things down than it is about national pride, offering little or no inspiring vision for the future.
It is true that fascism and nationalism are right-wing positions, not left-wing positions.
Apart from all the ways it isn't. Such as no Mussolini.
The US is governed as a plutocracy not as a fascist state.
Not at all. All one has to do is to subscribe to the marxist platform. There is no requirement on history any more than there is for any other 'ism'.
One doesn't even have to receive the marxist platform. One could arrive at it independently and still be marxist.
We'll have to disagree on the history point. But what about the idea that these "Marxists" appear to deplore working people? Surely if they were Marxists in ANY sense of the term, they'd have to sympathize with people who do hard work for a living.
That said, however, they do exhibit one characteristic of Marxism in its Leninist and Maoist forms, that being their zealotry trying to impose correct thought patterns and speech. But I'd argue that's a tendency that isn't necessarily confined to Marxism.
More broadly, I think the rush to slap Marxist and communist labels on these disagreeable thought-enforcers tends to discredit those wielding the labels and undermine otherwise legit criticism. The minute I hear someone barking those words or "Hitler" or "Nazi," I tend to tune out as I figure the speaker or writer is going off the hyperbolic deep end and probably has nothing thoughtful or insightful to say.
You would have to earn that answer by establishing that they do deplore working people. How have you confirmed it?
I believe that 'marxism' as it is being used refers to what is called 'cultural marxism' or 'neo-marxism'.
By your standards you couldn't comment until you have studied, György Lukács, Antonio Gramsci, Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, and Angela Davis.
I admire your forthrightness about the shallowness of your analysis, however.
The 1950's called. It wants its labels back.
Except the part about doing nothing to help anyone not in their peer group, leaving millions of marginalized POC with fewer protections against predatory capitalism. It's all the completely authoritarian dissolution of the individual (for everyone but them) with none of the social safety net, equality or stability of socialism. So all the worst parts of both systems.
Well, actually there is ...
Yea, but its a waste of time. The color of the wool does not make a sheep a sheep.
Sorry, Nick, forgive my denseness - not sure where your emphasis was, on "no debate" or "here"
Nick -- have started drinking again? Socialism is a future for humanity....
Funny you should say that. I gave it up almost 20 months ago to the day but feel crazier and crazier with each passing month.
;-)) -- I like your response
Pinko scum, this fool.
...says the commenter who took the time to upload an animated .gif as an icon on a message board. With such time on your hands, you must be really S-M-R-T.
Ahh, you come again. I just replied to another one of your inane points. RE: The difference between leftists that believe in labor on the board (making them naturally not labor) and the commies you pretend aren't of your ilk. You're a fool.
Best part about this comment is your other comment replying to the comment I made. And you're a mad kid. Good shit pal.
The thrust of the all these entreaties on foundational US constitutional/DOI concepts is the elimination of individual rights and the diminishment of the individual vis a vis the proletariat. Its socialism bordering on communism, and implementation via neo Bolshevism. Much of founders motivations were based on grievances against simple majority rule (Parliamentary structures), lack of leverage of the minority and minority representation buttressed against a background of entrepreneurship and religious differentiation. Live and let Live, with minimal government intervention a backstop of last resort, not a primary orchestrator of society, easily manipulated by simple majorities.
This just isn’t correct. If you think the views of the Founders were reflected in the Constitution, then I’m afraid to tell you that it’s a document which permits lots of government. The question isn’t “what can the government do or not do?” It is “does the federal government or local government have authority to make decisions?”
Aside from the fact that the Constitution at least tacitly permitted individuals to own other individuals as property; stealing land from Indians; and depriving women of political and economic right, I regret to inform you that the the Bill of Rights didn’t even apply to local governments. That’s right. The state of Virginia was free to set up a state church and make you pay taxes to support it or free to pass laws saying you couldn’t criticize the President. It was also free — at least under ol’ Jim Madison’s Constitution — to take away your real estate without providing you compensation or to torture you. And yes, it could also do all kinds of other regulatory stuff that wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the Constitution.
I’m fine with someone saying “libertarianism is good” as a philosophical matter but IK not fine with people putting their own political views into the mouths of the Founders.
This is a stupid point. These principles weren’t in the federal constitution because the founders didn’t believe in overly elevating the power of the federal government, not because they didn’t believe in any of the principles. John Adams wrote the oldest still operative written constitution on earth and the rights it granted were still held to protect the rights of gay people to marry only a decade and a half ago.
Apparently they didn't "believe in the principles" enough to make them applicable to state and local governments as well as the Federal government. It would be strange indeed if they were truly committed to the idea that free speech was a fundamental right that no government could take away at any level yet they left the state of Pennsylvania or the city government of Boston free to pass laws restricting free speech. You don't want to hear this because it conflicts with the history you've been taught and the political rhetoric you've absorbed throughout your life, but it's true.
"John Adams wrote the oldest still operative written constitution on earth and the rights it granted were still held to protect the rights of gay people to marry only a decade and a half ago." What does this have to do with anything whatsoever?
Are you asserting that Cities, States and Localities in the US are free to restrict free speech outside of constitutional bounds?
They were during the time of the Founders, because the Bill of Rights did not apply to state and local governments. At that time, it only applied to the federal government. For an example, see Baron v. Baltimore.
The Bill of Rights did not apply to state or local governments until well-after the American Civil War through a very convoluted process called incorporation of the 14th Amendment. By that time, of course, the Founders were all long-dead.
Sorry. I’m not a nanny so no one is paying me to babysit imbecile children. Especially not the ones with magical mind reading abilities that tell them what people who are smarter and know more than them are thinking. I’m done with you child. Muted.
Notice how you didn't respond to anything I said? This is not the mark of a good argument. I'm going to guess that you don't know McCullough v. Maryland from your own asshole. You are in no position to begin discuss what the Founders believed about the principles of American government.
The founders views are in the constitution. It is just that there was more than one founder. Go figure.
Agree on the irrelevancy of the founders views to today.
“There has never been a class revolution in America because the working class is too busy working” Eric Hoffer
“Revolution” was left to the idle rich of Ivy League and Cal-Berkeley trust gnd babies and grad students…..
I’d rather live in my own tiny box than be jammed into a Brutalist high-rise with 1000 other dwarfs.
I love the passion. Don't ever stop posting.
Quick question, why do you think the labor movement of the early 19th century died off when it did not on other places? Why did we never get another Eugene Debbs?
It's more than just a mortgage, it's the actual home itself. My mortgage has been paid for 13 years yet every year the taxman shows me who really owns it & it ain't me.
I will say that boxes are nice when its 10 below zero.
You don't own the roads, the schools, or the power lines either. You do own the increasing equity in your home, however.
Purifying flames aren't carbon-neutral.
You burn first.
:-D :-D :-D Dude. You are either batshit crazy, really not very bright, or a troll. Not sure which. Start with biology. We humans were cave dwellers for a long, long, long time. We humans, we like our caves. We used to have fires in our caves and kept warm at night. We could look out the cave entrance and see a valley full of animals to hunt. When we get stuff, we like to build fancy caves with windows. We call them - houses. Native Americans made tipis that could be hauled around, hogans that couldn't, and built towns and cities of clay and brick. Those rooms were smaller. This instinct we have for protective shelter is deep. We aren't like gorillas or chimpanzees that just sleep where ever they happen to be, or make nests in trees for the night.
This is a start. If you can understand that, it undermines all that fancy-talk political babble-gabble.
Chairman Mao would approve of your description!
Interesting - I've heard the "pulling the ladder up behind them" idea applied to the boomer generation regarding wealth, and even power, but it never occurred to me to translate it to the information sphere. I'm making an assumption that the reference here to the Left supporting free speech until they got into power is compatible with a narrative that the roots of the 2020's lie in the 1960's, and that yesterday's radicals are today's powerbrokers, with their students and protégées carrying on the project.
Of course, this also assumes the Left is ascendant, yet another interpretation fits the same narrative: it could also be that what we're seeing is the last gasp of the 60's revolution, the final, desperate expenditure of energy before the collapse. In many ways, this seems unlikely, with the Left ensconced at the heights of cultural and political power. Yet the increasingly unmoored conversations on the Left have such a "let them eat cake" feel at times that one wonders if this increasing trend toward authoritarianism is, in the end, actually a sign of political weakness and an impending loss of power.
Nobody is a bigger fascist than a zoomer.
It is not remotely "free speech" to say that people ought to be able to agree with you. "Free speech" is definitionally the allowing of people to DISagree with you.
The Left has never, in all of its history, supported free speech. It has only invoked the term (using the same Orwellianism it uses with most other terms) to advance itself. Free speech, like all forms of tolerance, is definitionally right-wing, just as identity politics is definitionally left-wing.
That seems to me to be a gross overgeneralization (not to mention that it's an obviously self-serving one). Groups that have historically been defenders of free speech and related first amendment rights are generally left-leaning or bi-partisan. The ACLU comes to mind, though they have been known to waver under sufficient political pressure. Probably the staunchest group I know of currently is F.I.R.E., one of the few I contribute money to support. And they are pointedly bipartisan.
I think a more useful idea than yours is to look at multiple organizations and individuals, regardless of political affiliation/orientation, and evaluate where they stand and how they've performed in practice under pressure on free-speech issues. To the extent that a group or individual has stood up to protect free speech rights for those they personally disagree with, the higher they should be ranked as serious supporters of free speech rights.
Going the other way (determining political orientation and then judging absent specific evidence which way a group or person will fall on free-speech questions) is counterproductive. And it misses the fact that anyone can claim to be "left-wing" or the opposite, but that doesn't really tell us all that much about his/her commitment to the first amendment or anything else. In this era of political correctness and wokeness, I'm constantly being told that I'm obviously: a fascist, Trump-supporter, Republican, reactionary, etc., as well as an "obvious" communist, libtard, ad nauseam. Apparently, my opinion on my own political views isn't relevant. But if anyone cares, I see myself as a socialist and liberal ironist (see Richard Rorty's CONTINGENCY, IRONY, AND SOLIDARITY). I'm fanatically in favor of free speech and have been since before I was a teenager.
Groups in favor of free speech tend to be on the outside looking in with regards to political power. Full stop.
Ed Meese comes to mind.
The Unibomber, Ted Kaczynski, unironically, wrote about your exact thesis decades ago in his manifesto. You should check it out.
Despite his madness, and the evil things the CIA did to him, he was brilliant and unfortunately correct about where our society is headed.
Me ten years ago: "This guy is crazy."
Me now: "I wish this guy sounded crazier."
:-D
I don't approve of what he did, but I think many of us have come to understand what motivated him to do it.
LEE, thanks for the comment on “individualism.” I’ve run across this term so much lately but still don’t have a good understanding of this take on it. I refer to DiAngelo’s and others insistence on eliminating “the ideology of individuality.” Can you enlighten me here? I’m serious. I continue to be surprised at this theme among “progressives.”
Nikolay Chernyshevsky: _What Is to Be Done?_
Thank you for introducing your mythology :D
Sorry, you never disappoint - always good for a laugh - you remind me of the smart talking dog in the movie "Up", very intelligent, capable of carrying on a good conversation, but every time he sees a squirrel, his eyes go pinwheel, his intellect shuts down and he goes chasing after the squirrel, I guess I am your squirrel (of course that invokes a charge of being "nutty", but that would be a welcome change :D)
You do know, of course, that a "mythology" is a narrative ...
I knew there was a reason I don’t get it. Beyond me. Ive just long felt that communitarian movements tend to totalitarianism, so all this worries me. It’s like a fundamentalist religion where the fundamentals change weekly, and if you can’t keep up you’re a heretic.
Lee, you nailed it! Reading this piece, and others recently, I've had the same though - these folks are truly reactionary. It's funny in a way. These would be the same people condemning Barry Goldwater in the 60s as reactionary. They are what they claimed he was. They are neither liberal nor progressive. And I believe they are blind to the fact that their approach to speech rights is likely to eventually come back to bite them in the ass, as it has most reactionary forces throughout history.
Capitalism and Communism are economic theories. They are about who benefits from the means of production. Theoretical Communism is democratic in its leanings as it ultimate aim is collapse economic wealth to all workers. Its hierarchical distinctions, derived from its analysis of Capitalism, are meant to wither away as its creed is implemented. Capitalism's model of economic ownership, in ultimately distinguishing between workers and owners, is essentially hierarchical. Totalitarianism, Fascism, Democracy are political concepts. I will say that Communism's focus on the economic system with little strong proscription of a political structure, has generally allowed it to be hijacked by totalitarian tendencies. Frequently ending in the state rather than the owners controlling the means of production. Capitalism has historically developed alongside democratic political concepts and governance. This parallelism has forced capitalism to mask itself in democratic clothes, rather than openly pursue its natural tendency to concentrate power in the economic elite. To equate Communism with Totalitarianism is to give Capitalist governance a pass, and suggest a distinction that raises self proclaimed communism to a level of political tyranny that is somehow above say a Fascist state.
Capitalism is to freedom what communism is to totalitarianism.
Neither are true
100% Fact. Capitalism and freedom are intrinsically bound. Capitalism relies on freedom, hence the term "free market capitalism". On the other hand, governments tend toward control, democratic or otherwise, and will always destroy the natural balance found in competing markets.
Thats cute, you still believe in free markets.
You don’t read good.
The Left have neither cultural nor institutional power in places like the US. One shouldn't conflate liberalism with socialism. Furthermore, liberals have always held power in the US, liberalism is the dominant and defining ideology of capitalism.
I'm not sure I agree with that, depending on your definition of left. Sure "workers unite" has never been a huge faction, but progressive globalists for decades have been the driving force, and you can take a tally of our media, financial, educational, tech, and foreign policy institutions and you'll find the same archetype over and over, despite this profile representing a very small slice of the populace.
@Lee
Absolutely *primo synopsis ! Thank you !
In this case, I'm overjoyed that history tends to repeat itself.
Yup, the most recent case being the Soviet Politburo selection of Chernenko in 1983 and the D nomination of Joe Biden last year……
Who do you disagree with? The anti-free speech brigade? The CRTers? The Left? Are these synonyms in your view or do you view that them as subsets of the Left?
If the former -- how did you confirm it?
If the latter -- isn't this just another round of dealing with the issue of the tolerance of intolerance?
correct
Imagine still thinking there is an operative left-right paradigm and calling others lacking.
Its simple, the leftists that don't believe is "free market communism" (which is basically what the Sanders ilk "believe in") are not leftists, they are fascists, like everyone else that disagrees with him.
I do believe what we have here is a failure to communicate. - Coo lHand Luke
Lenin claimed to be for the peasants too. That did not last long.
All leftist collectivist movements end up the same way, it starts out as “we’re doing it for the oppressed masses!” and ends up as “four legs good, two legs better” and “all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”, after passing through the phase of:
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
All animals are equal.
I have a problem with any political philosophy that is utopian in theory and totalitarian in practice.
Well put
Or dystopian in theory and totalitarian in practice.
Most rural Ukrainians didn’t give a shit about Lenin one way or the other-he didn’t interfere with agriculture or village life. De-kulakization, collectivism and the Holodomor were all on Stalin.
Are you serious? There was massive peasant unrest during the Russian Civil War. Lenin collectivizing all agricultural land and tools took away almost everything they had. Add in "war communism" and unfair forced requisitions and the peasant class was pissed. There were even a few massive revolts. They even got their own color, the Greens.
Lenin died in 1924. Collectivization of Ukraine began in 1929. Stxbuck is correct.
Did I mention Ukraine? How is it that I am talking about the Russian Civil War, peasant uprisings, and Lenin and you two are getting Ukraine?
Hitler was also a believer in youth athletics. It does not change my point Mr. Cheka.
"Mill ironically pointed out that “princes, or others who are accustomed to unlimited deference, usually feel this complete confidence in their own opinions on nearly all subjects.”" Interesting line, wouldn't you agree, Your Highness?
No, your problem is you think there is a difference.
Keep telling yourself that the Zizeks are in any way, shape, or form relevant in today's society. That left is dead and gone in Western society, if it ever truly existed. They've been replaced by the disciples of Marcuse.
What? Workers on the board? How about worker owned with no management… that’s something I could get behind. Workers on the board are just a new board. Why bother.
You people are fucking geniuses. That's what every properly functioning organization has. Dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people making their own decisions.
"Oh but they can vote! Democracy!" As if that is a solution to anything that requires actual thought.
Except that old fashioned top down authority structures are inherently inefficient from a structural perspective. https://necsi.edu/complexity-rising-from-human-beings-to-human-civilization-a-complexity-profile I’m not a huge fan of democracy either and don’t think it’s appropriate in many situations, but neither is top down chain of command structuring.
Carl Sagan warned us all of a return to the Dark Ages.
We're at the doorstep now.
Doorstep? We're already falling down the darkened basement stairs, mere milliseconds from impact.
Shouting into a hole is hardly saying whatever we want.
"We’re all here, aren’t we, saying whatever we want."
I'd revisit that idea once PATRIOT Act part B is passed to cover "domestic terrorism", possibly this year.
Given the threat posed by the scientific community, we'll be lucky to go back to the Dark Ages.
"YES! O, Great One!!!"
hahaha
I have been saying for some time that the Woke of today mirror the Moral Majority that raised Reagan to power in the 80's. The only scary part is the Woke mob has far more political and financial backing.
The other irony is that in the 80's if you were a Falwell Moral Majority you were definitely a Republican, and today if you are Woke you are likely a Democrat. It's amazing how times change, and those that come for freedoms come from vastly different angles, yet have similar excuses for doing so.
If everything is religion nothing is religion. Attempting to flatten meaning weakens your ethos, it doesn't strengthen it.
I too used to listen to NPR and On the Media. When Trump was elected, I went looking for thoughtful analysis and information about what was going on, but I found nothing but rage, paranoia, and dogma everywhere: NYT, the New Yorker (I'd been an adult-lifelong subscriber and ardent fan), TV networks, my Apple News feed, all of it. Gone to the dogs.
The final straw for me with On the Media was an episode they did a couple of years ago celebrating the random destruction of the lives of anyone the mob (or a troll hoping to inspire a mob) deemed a "Karen." The laziness of embracing the term was enough to turn me off.
But the glee with which Brooke Gladstone identified one unfortunate person after another, all private citizens who had done nothing, was chilling. She was cruel, and used her broadcasting reach to wreck people. Just for fun, I guess, or to feel a jolt of power. She identified a number of people by name and city, and her guest told us why these people were racists. I guess I was naiave, but I found it shocking, and have never listened again.
Same on NYT and NY, Slate, Apple. I was embarrassed to realize I'd followed along with such lack of questioning. I realized how much I'd sort of quietly accepted an mono-voice. (I did drop the Nation when they started sponsoring cruises, tho.)
Slate went Woke early. Complete bias.
and then went to ATL and NYT mag etc.
Mrs Apple (Steve Job's widow) is the majority stockholder of The Atlantic.
Following the dots is a FT job.
Every time I read "Karen" as a pejorative, I think of my mom's best friend, Karen, who died tragically young of pancreatic cancer. Fuck these people for turning her name into a racial insult.
I agree; it's repulsive.
I think of my sister who works for the flying doctors service in the Australian outback. Helping mostly indigenous communities. But no, her name is now an insult.
That sounds like The problem, "The".
They are possessed by demons (in the sense of Dostoevsky). They are channeling the same psychic forces that in other times and places produce lynchings, pogroms and genocides. It is shocking to see it embraced as a valid media industry operating system.
Agreed. I looked into a Substack from Heather Cox Richardson the other day. I'd not heard of her but she's got a big audience. All the same third-hand outrage at Republicans, little of it coherent. Whatever--if she makes money repackaging the NYT, good for her. But the comments, of which there were hundreds, thousands, were painful to look at. All rage, about "terrorists" (Republicans) "traitors" (Republicans), "Rethuglicans" (good one). Everyone wanted to lock people up or worse. Lots of hatred towards white people (from white people). Someone wanted time in a room with FL governor DeSantis and a baseball bat, and everyone cheered. (You know, because of masks). Someone else made a clever joke about lube (related to the bat) and people howled. They loved it. No question these people would line up for pitchforks if they weren't afraid to leave their homes.
I like the pitchforks line, but I think these people would be more into denouncing, preferably followed by the denounced being hauled off in the night for some manner of re-education experience. They are an aggressive bunch, but I have a hard time imagining them picking up the pitchforks themselves. They're more like a bunch of kids who can't wait to tell the teacher that you've been breaking the rules, except they want the teacher to ship you to Gitmo.
I wonder if they realize what a dangerous game they are playing. If things ever do blow up they might find their enemies have kept lists of things they have said. Historically speaking, the results are usually not pretty. Another problem is it is getting harder to tell the difference between serious and violent assholes, simple trolls, short term hot heads, sarcastic jokers, and simple misunderstandings. This might not end well and not only for the vitriolic pricks
Passive aggressive blather from the safety of a message board. These are the same people who stopped Yahoo & other sites from having comments on their "news" items because mean comments made them turn fetal as they furiously searched for their thumbs to suck. In anything other than a mob they'd wet themselves. Every single one of them talk a talk they could never walk in a million years. It's why they don't carry their BLM gospel to gangsta land. Some shitlib Kamala would shove a smartphone in Mr. Gangsta's face screaming "SAY BLACK LIVES MATTER! SAY BLACK LIVES MATTER!" & Mr. Gangsta would shove a Glock in Kamala's face and say BOOM!. End of Kamala. End of protest.
Rethuglicans=As good woke approved bots, don’t they realize the term “thug” is now officially “problematic”/cancel-worthy?!?!
I vote we declare it problematic in the Indian anticolonial movement way so the woke losers who never read books get confused.
That's what terrifies me, Ned. The horrible propaganda from MSM is one thing. But the comments section in the NYT and similar outlets is truly horrifying. The comments for Krugman's recent "The Rage of the Responsible" fact-free diatribe was something else. The hate, the rage, the advocacy for violence. And they really think they're on the morally righteous side of all of these debates.
Explained in 4 minutes.---Here you go: Nikolai Stavrogin and Pyotr Verkhovensky.
Pyotr is quiet clear: (eng subs)(from "Demons" by Dostoyevsky)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrtjttyAPjo
That's fascinating. Thank you. What a fierce face this young man has. I haven't read Demons but I'll have to look into it.
I'm no expert on FD but I have read all the books. However, I read them before I really knew the historical context. It's quite startling how FD predicted the revolution w/o knowing that is what he was doing of course. I tried to find this movie and I did find it at Soviet Movies online then found a few clips on You Tube. Stavrogin is exactly how he seemed in the book. The main action was based on a true story FD read in the newspaper. It might be one of the more difficult books I have read because to fully understand it I had to study up on the history of Russia at the time. I had the time during COVID to finally make all the connections.I'd read C&P and BK but not Demons. I think it may be the best of all. Tho the Idiot is close.
Ned, you lasted longer than I did. I bailed out at the very beginning of the Trump era, still in the primary campaigns. Bob Garfield announced that Trump represented such a consummate evil and threat to humanity that he, Bob Garfield, would no long maintain any pretense of journalistic objectivity. His job thenceforth as a journalist would be to fight this evil.
Well, Trump is gone and I read that so is Bob. He was fired for "violated the company's anti-bullying policy".
New Yorker had lost its luster, but after I was interviewed and found out what a twisted joke their "fact checking" was, I lost all respect for them. I had lost respect for NYT years before after I tried several times to correct egregious errors in news stories overseas and they were anti-interested. I view all journalism today as suspect - no matter who does it. One reason for this is that most journalists today just don't make enough money, and haven't got the budget to do real research on stories.
Matt Taibbi is quite good. He tries hard, and he's smart enough and experienced enough to do quite well. With a real budget and higher salary, who knows what he might do?
Interesting! I'd love to know why you were interviewed. The New Yorker used to be famous for its fact-checking, but no more. Last year, Jill Lapore wrote in the NY that two-thirds of ER visits among young people resulted from police violence. Really? I've been to emergency rooms. People crash motorcycles and skateboards and drop cinderblocks on their toes, but very few are beaten by police. That this made it past the editors shows how lost they are at the New Yorker. (The actual number is closer to .2%.)
One of my aha moments came a few years ago when Jia Tolentino wrote, in an article about incels (remember them? they were before murder hornets) that "a rich straight white man" will always "find ways to get laid." Huh? Her article was about a rich, straight white man who was so angry at being rejected by women that he killed someone.
Last year, in a typical throwaway, Bill McKibbon wrote in the New Yorker about his home state of Vermont: "As has been the case across the nation, the state’s population of color has been disproportionately hit." Follow his link and we see that non-whites died at LOWER rates than the overall population. They just make stuff up. (I wrote about this article in "Attitude or Climate in Vermont? The New Yorker Credits Folksiness over Science." A link is near my name above.)
Almost all of the press is bad, and in all the same ways, but I feel especially betrayed by the New Yorker, as it used to be a place of great writers—E.B. White, J.D. Salinger, John Hersey, Nabokov, John McPhee, thousands of them. Now it's Keeanga-Yahmahtta Taylor writing the word "racism" 21 times in an article about a virus.
Anthony Mir writes about what happened to media in a book called Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers. The media after Trump: Manufacturing Anger and Polarization. I did not post here initially for eyeballs, but I've had something to say about most of the publications people have expressed frustrations with here, so, if you're curious, you can scroll through the titles from the link above for your favorite target.
I'll post just one piece, about my wayward New Yorker. I touch on the low-pay-in-journalism problem in it:
https://scareballoon.substack.com/p/plague-journal-july-2021-conformity-e98
These days she’s as cruel as McCarthy and Cohn were. Where’s our Joseph Welch to squash this shit? Matt?
Considering Gladstone was a theater major in college, I’d say she found her niche.
Never listening (or reading) again is happening a lot.
Try the Epoch Times which includes Epoch TV. The American Thought Leaders, Kaschs Corner, and other shows on there very well done and have most excellent guest interviews. I'm just a subscriber...but highly recommend the printes paper as well as the app and the Epoch TV portion. Well worth the subscription price.
Again, brilliant analysis. I haven’t financially supported PBS or NPR in years. My monies and support are better spent on Substack and other forums that support what we used to call mainstream. These days the only voice we seem to have is our dollars. Vote with your dollars.
There is one good public radio station, WBJC in Baltimore. They dropped NPR several decades ago, and play classical music 24 hours a day, except for brief AP updates during rush hour. We have supported them for many years, and now listen on the web as we moved away from Maryland.
This is what I am doing now.
I agree with this concept generally but I have a little bit of misplaced confusion in regard to NPR. If you look at the correlation of where NPR gets its money from, relative to how bad their "journalism" (or whatever the proper term is for their product now) there is a pretty good trend that as the % of their funding come from fewer larger private donors things go from good (depending on your opinion) to really really disastrously bad. Now it is true some correlations are spurious and this may be one of them. But if it is not, then by pulling out our small individual funding are we continuing the trend and making things worse? I mean I stopped my NPR donations too, and I know not what the right answer is, I am just voicing an unresolved thought that has been plaguing me for a couple of years now in the hopes that someone with better perspective on this issue might see it and provide me with some better food-for-thought to resolve it.
This is why I subscribed. Very few have the standing and ability to deconstruct so thoroughly the moronic state of NPR and our corporate media today.
The media has been so captured by grifters like Kendi and DiAngelo that they’re basically empty parodies of themselves. I would have more respect if they just came out and said the new speech laws would be applied according to race and an oppression index.
They must be mocked.
Babylon bee does a wonderful job of mocking these evil fools.
It is a wonderful organization. I expect them to be deplatformed any day now.
They are already starting to try: https://thefederalist.com/2020/08/19/twitter-bans-babylon-bee-then-claims-it-was-an-innocent-mistake/
True
The Babylon Bee needs funding and SNL needs competition. Just sayin'.
SNL needs to be cancelled.
The last time SNL was funny I was in college. I'm 64 now.
SNL needs to be cancelled because it sucks, but if someone enjoys paying for that garbage, more power to them.
Of course; I meant that in the classic sense of shitty programming getting cancelled from the rotation and not the woke version of it.
SNL hasn't made a good skit since the mid 90s and in 2016 when everyone fell over themselves to gawk, point and laugh like hyenas at half of the country's malcontent they jumped right on the low fruit gravy train. Here's a hint to up-and-coming comedy writers: When your writing resembles a political party's hard line... it's not comedy anymore.
Basic subscription is $50/year.
https://babylonbee.com/register/basic
I love the BB. I check it everyday to see who they've skewered now.
And resisted!
"The media has been so captured by grifters like Kendi and DiAngelo"
Its so true, but I just can't figure out why. Its certainly not on the merits of their arguments, theories, or outcomes of their prescriptions. This makes it hard not to entertain conspiracy theories as I am lost trying to come up with how and why these people are given anything more than a polite smile by the rest of society as it passes by them sitting in their own metaphorical little "corner of crazy" from where they are mostly ignored by sane society.
Any amount of time you spend, Matt, describing just how awful NPR has become, is time well spent. I am being quite serious. Getting a root canal done is positively enjoyable compared to listening to NPR.
I want to be scrupulously honest here. I am referring to undergoing a root canal with use of Novocain. Have done it many times. It's not that bad. Without Novocain, though, chances are I would nonetheless prefer to spend the equivalent amount of time listening to NPR.
:-D
I’ve been teaching law in China for the past 11 years, and what strikes me the hardest about the NPR segment you describe is how the anti-free speech advocates sound just like the Chinese Communist party-line.
Communitarians vs individuals. I am not defined by the groups you try to put me into. I am an individual with GOD GIVEN RIGHTS. These rights DO NOT come from the state.
"Collective" and "individual" are not concepts to be pitted in a death struggle against each other. They're a dialectic to be negotiated, by individuals living among each other in groups. As for "communitarian", well, one should only hope. "Communitarian" means that neighbors care enough about each other to help each other out.
If you have individual rights, then so does everybody else. You don't get to do the "rights" thing while disregarding the rights of other people.
I also have to say that, someone hollering about their "God Given rights" falls on my ears sort of strangely. It's suspicious to play that card, like a mugger playing a Murphy game- tackling someone to steal their wallet while claiming to be police making an arrest. Using ALL CAPS doesn't help that impression.
I happen to love the “moronic American creed”, I am proud of the “moronic” American flag, I enjoy singing heartily the “moronic” American anthem. Sorry, I am an individual first and foremost and am responsible for decisions I make and groups I “join” however groups I have no say over AKA white male etc do not define me
So, what groups have you joined? (Besides this one...)
PS - Da Google knows... Bwahahaha
Thank you !! But there is a difference in -- RESULTS. Manufacturing didn't just move to China by itself -- it was enthusiastically exported to China in the name of profits...
Financial Times -- July 8, 2021:
“China’s emergence over the past four decades ranks as the biggest and longest-run economic boom in history. Its annual gross domestic product rose from a mere $191 B, or $195 per capita, in 1980 to $14.3 T, or $10,261 per capita, in 2019.
It has raised more than 770m people from poverty and transformed the Chinese economy into a high-tech powerhouse that is on course to eclipse America’s in size. This transformation is the landmark achievement of the Chinese Communist party, which celebrates its 100th anniversary on Thursday.”
China literally started at a baseline of famine still being a real worry in 1977 when Deng Xiaoping took over to their current growth. People want normal stuff-and if a billion people are held back from getting that and then let off the chain, of course growth is going to be off the charts spectacular. It’s like comparing the growth of a baby to that of a late teenager. All China’s authoritarian bs is just ultra-efficiency-human rights and freedoms be damned-it has nothing to do w/ economics. Deng Xiaoping saw the CCP as an efficient governing structure, not as an ideological organization per se.
They still have some Communist beliefs and policies, but their main philosophy is pragmatic authoritarian nationalism. Maybe they found what Sun Yat-sen was looking for all along, a world power united China? I am not a fan of the CCP, but I find them to be anything but stupid.
Well, China also provided policy support. For instance, China set out to educate a wild surplus of engineers, and did so. This was done because of recognizing that engineering ability was the foundation of the real economy's wealth. Steve Jobs referenced that when he said, "Those jobs aren't coming back," meaning Apple manufacturing. The reason was simple. In China it was easy to find 30,000 engineers required to output a new product line. In the USA it was impossible. It wasn't just a matter of salaries. Those salaries, when amortized over huge production runs are not a big cost. The problem was he couldn't find them, and that meant products didn't happen, or they happened years later, which would make Apple a middle of the pack company.
YES - thank you. Most of the "philosophers" on this site have little understanding of even basics on China -- beyond the standard war party propaganda..
I don’t like your opinion on Free Speech Matt and I don’t think you should be able to write things like this. Just kidding. Fuck these twats.
To the.... GULAG!!!
On The Media was always an NPR outlier for me. A usually perceptive peek inside the meta narratives that I've been interested in since studying McLuhan in high school. I had to stop listening around the Trump era because it drifted into the dishonest space you identified above. So sad and weird.
What is going on with the smart people in America? At a minimum they should be suspicious of the certainty of their beliefs. Anyone who isn't shouldn't dare consider themselves part of any intelligentsia.
What “smart” people? Our University system is a corrupt broken joke.
As-designed, sadly. You probably already know about "The Long March Through the Institutions", but if not, look it up.
Yes, I’m aware. Time for a “counter March”
You want to fix it? First step, make it free to anyone who qualifies. Germany does this. American students can go to German universities for free too - if they qualify.
What does this do? It removes the student as customer financial motive for universities. It ends social promotion.
As someone who has taught at universities in the USA in the current era, I don't think it's broken. I think it is damaged, but engineering and sciences are fair to pretty good. Those subjects are badly (or horribly) taught at the "best" universities far too often, because researchers don't want to teach and generally never taught how. Better off to get your lower division basics at a good community college or 4 year university where faculty are paid to teach and rated on teaching ability.
We need it back the way it was when a good university education was practically free so that the administrators aren't pushing for social promotion.
A good education requires serious grading by real professors, not easy As from TAs.
As corrupt as the medieval Catholic Church; we need a modern day Luther.
That dishonest space existed on NPR for a long time prior to Trump. The thing is, you’ve escaped it. Looks like they’ve decided that the only way that they can get you back now is to silence their critics, so that there is no alternative. But make no mistake, they never changed. You did.
Could he, but I was talking specifically about “On the Media”.
The smart people mostly seem to be playing along with all of it, even if it means being completely insincere. They don't want their names on lists. Speaking truth to power apparently is way out of fashion. All this tends to argue that, in aggregate, we don't actually deserve what this country was designed to be. That would require some actual courage.
Well, I hate to tell you this, Matt. But maybe you'll finally get on board with what a threat to freedom these elitist far left people are. I taught at a university in Michigan and saw this coming for decades really, but the last ten years like a freight train. This is going to get ugly. They plan to silence and demonize anyone who doesn't agree with them. In America! she gives THEM the platform and the right to say the idiot things that come out of their mouth!! What incredible irony. Wow. But this takes my breath away.
I attended grad school at a big 10 uni from 1989-1991. Sitting in the student lounge between classes--where one could smoke (!)-- was like being a spy at a gathering of epicene creeps declaring that when "we're in charge" anyone who disagrees will be lined up against a wall and shot. They were always faux enraged by something as expressed by rolling eyes, sneers, and pre-fabbed opinions. Never an original view or insight or humor. Utter bores with ultra sensitive antennae twitching at the slightest deviation in thought and lips curling at laughter they could not understand. I fucking hated that place.
Ha. You've pretty much nailed it. I was there all together about ten years and this is about dead on. Think of comedians these days. Maybe some of them are getting it. Maher, Tim Allen. Seinfeld. Love to see how they fare under the Truth Czar. Been a while since universities were places for free exchange of ideas. I was published, then cancelled at a literary publication at Wayne State -- back before 1950, certainly before 1900, most literary contemporary writers came from all walks of life and many had REAL jobs -- same with politicians. Now they all come out of MFA programs. These career influencers, media, university professors, Hollywood, have never been in the real world. And they have NO sense of humor.
>>>They are going to find that victimhood is currency really just in the university, not in the real world.>>>
This is no longer true. Corporations are all getting strong-armed by a small number of extremely powerful institutional investors (Vanguard, Blackrock, Fidelity) into hiring Diversity, Equity & Inclusion officers. Guess what their purpose is? It's to serve as a pipeline to spread the cancer from university social sciences departments directly into corporations via the HR function.
It's metastasizing quickly. This is why you hear about e.g. the Coca Cola company instructing their employees to "be less white".
Hm, yes, this is definitely happening it seems. We still have a small chance to stop it. Very small window.
That's true. Very true. Nice point.
Journalist has never been a working class job. Reporter was. Editor is. Journalist is the byproduct of J-school grads seeking a credentialed "profession" like lawyer or doctor, without the relatively hard work.
Same.
No need to shoot. Laughter is to them is like sunlight is to vampires: they wither and fall to ashes and blow away when joked about.
Completely true. This is why there are lese majeste laws in absolute monarchies — “only dictators can’t be made fun of”. Humor reveals the emperor’s nudity.
p.s. Thanks, Matt. Hang in there. And keep writing.
mouths, sorry. I should proofread these. :)
My daughter went there and I know others associated with Wayne State. It’s gotten even worse.
Yes, and I'm sure it's not the worst place, either. But really, this was creeping up for decades. One political position is published. What I hope is that people who understand that America was founded on free speech will bond together. They had fist fights on the floor of congress. That is what America is. And what made her great. If you don't hear anyone disagree with you, you better worry. These people don't get that -- actually the politicians do, but they think their ideas, their ends justify any means. And it doesn't.
This is the first time I have seen the claim that 1800s Arkansas Congressmen and Rep. Preston Brooks made America great!
??
We must stand and fight.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/millenarian-mobs/
Hm, just perused a little of this. Will read later...
No, class warfare didn't work for them, so they are using culture and race. It's just dressed up slightly differently. All Marxism.
Love this turn of phrase "It’s unsurprising that NPR — whose tone these days is so precious and exclusive that five minutes of listening to any segment makes you feel like you’re wearing a cucumber mask at a Plaza spa"
Yes! I stopped reading silently, laughed and reread it aloud to my husband. Good ol' Matt.
You wouldn't prefer a more journalistic approach?
That sort of point-scoring attempt weakens the story in my opinion as it just ladles on condescension and bias.
My response was immediate recognition of the sensation described, not analytical.
Ditto
Trump broke On The Media. I sheepishly admit that it used to be my favorite radio program. During the 2016 election, they went all in on the inevitability of Clinton and ran bizarre “What if” reading of Atlantic articles about the implosion of the US if Trump was elected and Bob went on rants about how stupid it was to believe that either Trump or Sanders could win. When Trump won, rather than taking it as a sign that their entire understanding of the media was wrong, they doubled down and retreated fully into the NYC to DC corridor media bubble. And then they Me Too’d Bob. Full TDS.
I have found Poynter has gone that way as well.
Astonishing. A thoughtful and perceptive observation. Oh, well! ;)
Once again, I am reminded that my $50 a year for Matt's columns is a bargain and money well spent. Let's see, our modern progressive elites come mostly from elite educational institutions that for years have imposed speech codes. Our progressive "betters" solemnly swore that speech codes were about protecting the rights of everyone. Of course, now we are told that individual rights themselves are the REAL problem and that once we get rid of individual rights, then our society can experience "wholeness."
Matt: An exceptional column. Among your best. I'd go further than hammering just NPR though. The Dems, especially through social media, are suppressing free speech. Remember the Wuhan Lab Theory that was not PERMITTED for a year (wish I could italicize)?! Or how the press refused to allow the Hunter Biden laptop story out from its suppression of the NY Post's story? There are speech codes on campuses and forced reeducation and struggle sessions--mostly directed at white people--under the name of "equity". I doubt there is one conservative or Republican who is in favor of speech codes. But to return to NPR: it has become well-nigh unlistenable. Thanks for taking the hit for me.
Interestingly universal vaccination as a way to reach herd immunity is now being seen as a failure by the head of the Oxford vaccine team in the UK. He says everyone will get COVID. This is still being denied and deplatformed here but watch for them to turn on a dime and screech,”No one EveR clAimed vacCines wouLd reDuce infeCTions!” They’re already doing it to soften the beachhead.
At the beginning it was clear(to me and other sentient beings) that a highly infectious respiratory virus with a long latency period would go through the entire population. Period.
Never found it appealing. Not shocked that NPR has continued to degrade and decompose with time
You'd have to go back four or five decades to the golden age of NPR. Now it's just pure woke garbage.
@nancy2001
And that feels even more like a betrayal, doesn't it ? Something that, at *one time, was a gem in a desert of hate and room-temperature IQs *devolves into something too embarrassing to recommend to college students anymore ?
https://brianhanley.medium.com/the-covid-19-sars2-lab-origin-story-zombies-back-from-the-dead-c6d987344cee
Ugh. Awful. I used to listen to NPR every day but stopped by mid-2018. They used Trump's "good people on both sides" statement as proof that he was a racist, stated that they will call him a racist going forward and never looked back. When the fact checking came out about what was really said and in what context, they doubled down. I am not now, nor ever have been, a Trump supporter. Ever. But that sort of open bias championing was too much for me to stand any more. I used to believe if I wanted a straight story on something - especially if it was controversial - I'd go to NPR.
It's also worth noting that they managed to take swipes at Trump as well as inferring (implying?) that the populism that got him elected was at its core racist and homophobic.
I think it's interesting how counter productive it was for the left media to slavishly paint Trump, the GOP, the right, and populists as racists. As a conservative I have completely turned it out, and I think most on the right have too. It's just noise. The trouble is that it makes it difficult for reports of true racism to land. You can only cry wolf so many times.
Exactly. I got into an argument with someone about this same topic. If everything is racist, nothing is. It allows for real racism to hide in plain sight.
I still tune in to NPR occasionally just to find out what the "official" news is about. Although the identity issues always seem to predominate ,it is interesting to see how they project foreign issues with the same insipid narrative....a lot of hand wringing about Afghanistan, but no dissident views about how we got there, let alone any discussion about the stranglehold military contractors have on US foreign policy.
That really is the most fascinating thing about the totalitarian neoliberal coup over our country: how quickly it became verboten to question the motives of classic left-wing villains like billionaires, defense contractors, law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Somehow an amorphous blob of rural rednecks with zero political or institutional power are the cause of all problems in a world dominated by the corporate left.
And, for some insane reason, otherwise intelligent and educated people BELIEVE it!
Yeah NPR is not really interested in really looking at anything that the elites like. Say defense contracts. We have unemployed factory workers in Ohio to treat as alien monsters first, before we worry about actual government dysfunction. Trump is/was a symptom of a dysfunction that stretches far beyond either party.
The entire progressive playbook consists of creating a straw man label for their enemies and attacking the straw man, it comes from Alinsky.
I was just arguing with a friend that NPR has become a progressive circle jerk masquerading as our guardians of truth. Whenever they talk about COVID, antiracism, the limits of free speech or basically anything else, I feel like a right wing nut job (which apparently nowadays is the center).
Center implies equal distance from the edges. Somehow, I get called both a socialist and a Trumper...there is no continuum. Us sane folk, who don't buy either fringe's crap nor what passes for "centrist", are rarely acknowledged let alone invited to the table...
Thanks, Matt, for doing the heavy lifting
in bringing sanity and ETHICS/PRINCIPLES back into American discourse.
Have the slightest concern about "cancel culture" or the healthiness of our current mob of social media puritans. You must love Tucker Carlson and watch him every night! The whole "you either 100% with us, or you are a nazi" shit has got to eventually backfire. Sometimes the left is so crazy I seriously wonder if its advocates people are like paid stooges for the far right or something. Which is stupid of course the right has always had its crazies, but I am starting to feel more and more surrounded by crazies. It is not a pleasant feeling...clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right. I hope I get out of here with my ears!
Loved the movie but not sure you're talking to me.
Never seen a moment of Tucker Carlson.
"There is no us. We don't exist. So who do you wanna hit, man? It's not me."
See, that’s the problem, they have gotten *you* to feel like a nut job, when in reality *they* are the nut jobs. Fear of being cast out of the tribe is a primary human motivator for obvious evolutionary reasons, and progressivism preys upon that.
A time is coming when people will go mad and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, “You are mad, you are not like us.” - Saint Anthony the Great
Problem is, they control massive bandwidth. Although not nearly as important as they were pre-Internet, they still cause too many minds to completely close off from the debates necessary for a healthy democracy.
Joke's on us. How do we fix it? Maybe the answer lies in a continued, focused attack on their beyond-the-pale pretense to being "public" radio
So Americans are expected to have their tax dollars spent on a station that advocates for censorship. Congress might be better served IF they totally defunded most grants to these types of outlets. Let them survive on their own if the public is interested in listening to their neo-Nazi rational for truncating another speech. There will probably always be a debate about the limits of "free" speech. Problem is outlets like NPR don't debate they propagandize most subjects --- and with our money. This usually boring and ideological station could not live without the gov't throwing money at it. It has devolved into a gaggle of woke ideologues without a clue.
@Not Me$
While I sympathize with your sentiments, this kind of "vengeance is mine" shtick is kind of a joke, *every time it comes up, which is more often than people seem to know. NPR, and PBS derive less than 2% of their budget from taxpayers. The rest comes from deep pocket foundations, donors, and others. I absolutely *love their "Nova" program, but it *does make my anal sphincter "clutch" a bit every time I see them credit "David Koch" (Founder of ALEC, even as dead as he IS) for his *major contributions to whitewashing ..... ahem, .... I mean, to science. So, both stations *could easily let the taxpayers go soak their heads while the other 98%+ of the deep pocket funders are asked to "make up" the less than 2% difference. Sorry.
Then I see absolutely no reason they should receive ANY tax dollars. What possible public purpose is there to continue to fund them?
You don't make the decision. Go run for Congress, win, then convince enough reps and senators to end it.
What an idiotic response! This is what's called "an opinion" involving "free speech". Clearly you missed the point of Matt's article and comments like the above!
So your pro free speech position is to defend my response, correct? Because to do anything else would make you a hypocrite, yes?
I admire your moral rigor.
You absolutely get to say as many stupid and vapid things as you'd like. Your free speech doesn't make it sensible or meaningful or thoughtful or wise.
The corporate donations ARE TAX DEDUCTIBLE. Which lowers the public fisc, and forces the common man to pay more than his fair share of taxes. Tax the donations, Tax NPR.
10% is federal funding through CPB. ~5% is state and local gov funding.
@ Atma 🐱💻
Hello amigo😎 After reading Matt's insightful musings about listening to a one-sided pseudo debate on public radio earlier, and sort of skipped through some of the comments (ostensibly responding to it) I find myself empathizing with your observation
that a "vengeance is mine shtick" seems to have garnered favor. I did not read anything in Matt's narrative that baited such a digression, but this level of censorious vengeance🐍 does seem a tad absurd in response to his clear advocacy for a fair and balanced discussion of free speech. 🙄
Anyway, I also often enjoy NOVA, as well as the FRONTLINE series; plus, the two Bay Area PBS stations have some quality local programing; and as you factually stated only 2% of public radio & TV funding is by the Federal Gov't. There was one comment early on that made a very astute reference to Associate Justice Louis Brandeis, who wrote what has been heralded as the greatest defense of our freedom of speech ever written since the founding. The legal case at bar is worth looking up and reading: Whitney vs California. 👴
EA☮
Also, the 16% is public funding. It isn't your money.
Only about 16% of NPR funding is public and only 10% of that is Federal.
Yup