1984 indeed. Some people might laugh at this, but I really hope that free-speech-oriented companies like Rumble, Gab, Substack, Gettr, and even Truth Social succeed -- as much for people on the left *like me* as for people on the right.
Case in point, Robby Soave (editor at Reason magazine, an ostensibly libertarian magazine), if you've ever heard of him. But that's why it doesn't matter what we label ourselves. I don't know many liberal "liberals" anymore either.
I'm a classic liberal, favoring social liberalism and financial conservatism. The financial conservatism is necessary, because without it we cannot afford the luxury of social liberalism otherwise.
I listen to Robby on Rising. I haven't heard him take any grossly authoritarian positions. Do you mean Reason itself is taking such positions and Robby is at least in part responsible due to his position?
He is only libertarian when it comes to government, which would work just fine if we didn't have such huge corporations that government doesn't have to be authoritarian. They just have the corporations do it for them. Someone who doesn't recognize the danger of fascism, which is government and corporations working together to control a population, is not a libertarian. Robby Soave does not recognize that.
Robby Soave is libertarian when it comes to the government, but when it comes to businesses he thinks they can do whatever they like, never mind that our corporations are so big and so entangled with the government that the government doesn't need to be authoritarian to turn this country into a dystopia. They just have to tell the businesses to do that (think vaccine mandates, censorship--all that's just fine with Soave as long as corporations are making the demands). That's my problem with Robby Soave.
I'm thinkin' you should take a hard look at what you can expect to happen if you start letting some ill-defined "common good" trump any individuals' personal freedom. It's more like a base jump with no bungee cord than a "slippery slope".
Besides, the libertarians at Reason have, taking a cue from the wokeians, re-defined libertarianism to suit themselves. They've gotten it down to one unquestionable and invariable principle: INFINITE IMMIGRATION! Open borders, and any attempt to ensure that immigration is beneficial to the country is as evil as asking someone to have a valid ID to vote.
The libertarian ideology views individual freedom as the height of the common good. That personal freedom necessarily extends to women, gay people etc. If it doesn't, you are not libertarian, full stop.
I'm literally listening to him right now complain about the authoritarian strain in the Republican party that is expressing itself via the anti-CRT laws for what that is worth.
You may disagree with the libertarian philosophy of course, but the fact that you disagree doesn't make them all opportunistic, despicable hypocrites.
No, there are people in ALL parties and persuasions who are now authoritarian and that's why political lines are being redrawn. But libertarians are no guiltier than liberals. Less, actually. But there are people in all parties, elites, and globalists that believe in noble lies, in their ability and the necessity to control narratives and thus humans. With short or no memories.
I hope it too but it’s unlikely. Pressure will be placed to shut down their servers. Really the only hope is someone will invent a technology truly impossible to control, but that’s a slender reed to hang hope on.
Tech will never solve this problem. For every leap in cryptology there will be a bound in hacking. No, the only real answer is to create an expectation of free speech. It needs to be ground into each and every person that the right for others to speak their piece is what ensures my right to speak. And what we should shame anyone who feels differently.
And this needs to start at the most basic levels. Transparency in local gov't. Force anyone who feels a need or has the ability to shame you for asking questions and speaking, the two basic building blocks of a free and civil society, to feel the shame of the public square.
When people feel that they need to silence other people for having a different opinion, we, all of us no matter the political stripe, need to come to their defense. And, yes, this applies equally to BLM as to MAGA.
The distinction being that the MAGA movement has never tried to shut down anyone's freedom of expression, while BLM and the rest of the radicalized Left are incessantly working to violate the First Amendment rights of anyone who dares express any "unapproved" words or ideas. They screech "silence is violence!" in your face while demanding that others be silenced. Then proceed to label everyone white supremacists.
That distinction is a matter of power differential, not moral differential. Remember that it used to be the Republicans, the “moral majority” that represents the historical “great America” to which MAGA refers, who posed the greatest threat to free speech. They’re the ones who wanted to ban rap and video games. The MAGA advocacy for civil liberties is every bit as shallow and self-serving as Dem advocacy for such causes was during the Bush years. Both sides use civil liberties as a tool when they’re on the defensive, only to sing a very different tune once they’ve obtained the upper hand. Don’t trust any of these assholes.
What you are referring to was an unholy alliance of the small government libertarian wing (what used to be called Goldwater Republicans) and the Bible thumpers. This partnership, often referred to as the "Reagan Coalition", pretty much defined the late 20th Century GOP platform. Neither side shared much common ground but they needed one another to counter the big government, endless handout juggernaut of the ruinous Democrat party.
Bush II marked the end of this fading alliance. The hill which the holy roller club chose to die upon was the same sex marriage battle. While eking out a few early victories such as CA's PropH8, they lost once and for all at SCOTUS and pretty much haven't been heard from since. None of their dire predictions of the End Times ever came to pass.
Recall the 2016 GOP primary where all of the 37+ candidates were tripping over one another in lock step professing their undying commitment to overturning marriage. All but one that is, and he went on to claim the nomination and the throne and launched the MAGA movement with a proclamation that "Marriage is settled law". While heresy for a Republican, recall that Black Jesus was elected on a platform of "One Man, One Woman" then proceeded to regress race relations by a half century in his first term alone.
The script has been flipped ever since.
The only demand of MAGA is love of one's country and a desire for its needs prioritized over the needs of other nations. Just like other nations prioritize their needs above ours. And that includes secured and defined borders.
p.s. I seem to recall the jihad to censor music and video games in the 80's being driven by the wife of a future Democrat Vice President and eco-warrior. What Frank Zappa referred to as "A bunch of bored Washington housewives".
I disagree. The Falwell right still lives and breathes. They just decided that money was more powerful than god!
The Falwell right was brilliant. They realized that very few Americans vote in the non-national election cycles (when School boards and local governments are put on the ballot), and mobilized the Liberty University grads to move to new locations and run. They took over the places where things actually happen in this country and nobody truly cares.
Everything else is just theatre. Most of it egged on and escalated by government actors.
You practically write the definition of fascism in respect to MAGA: "The only demand of MAGA is love of one's country and a desire for its needs prioritized over the needs of other nations. Just like other nations prioritize their needs above ours. And that includes secured and defined borders."
Once I read Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals I gained insight into what’s happening. That of course led me to Derek Bell and Kimberly Crenshaw and papers on CRT from Harvard Law Review in late 90s early aughts. I RE-read Marx and Engels. I also went back to The Constitution and The Federalist Papers.
Among other things that’s when I accepted the fact that what had happened to me and so many others is not a conspiracy theory it’s that people blindly accepted what seemed to be a well-meaning message I mean who isn’t for everyone getting along right? And then they were committed to the narrative and the more the media called out “racist” and “white privilege” and pols were saying violence is okay the more committed they became and they were validated. There’s no way they could back out even if they wanted to.
When riots went on for months and lies and gaslighting became the norm I realized this was not like 1968 or LA or even Occupy.
I also became convinced at that point that even if Biden’s election was free and fair he is not in control.
His aging and/or stupidity just made it easier for him to fit the suit and the men and women behind the curtain are in charge. It all just seems like a bad dream or Alice In Wonderland.
It is important to read the interpretations of social theory, of James Madison and the Federalist Papers, along with many sociology papers. What you never read from these writers however are bald assertions without explication. However, somewhere along the line, you have learned and imitated the outlandish practice of making bald assertions without evidence or reasoning. For example, your remarks about Biden, about rioting, about "behind the curtain" are obscure and lack detail and sense - you are unhistorical and inaccurate. Are you talking about the communist regime in Russia or the Wizard of O? Comments like yours are not helpful and simply regurgitate crap through your party machine.
Im not sure what you’re trying to prove but “unhistorical” is completely incorrect as I AM part of history.
You stated my failure to provide supporting evidence of my thoughts and opinions while You provided no qualified counter-argument Only lots of words, several of which are used incorrectly.
I’m not spending any additional time on this when you can go and actually do some work to “fact check” my original IDEAS, OPINIONS and POSITS
FACT: this President has consistently made accusations and threats alienating large numbers of American citizens. These are just 2 examples.
if more than 30% of the population disapproves of your performance even when you have a media machine excusing, rationalizing or ignoring bad policy you’re not doing well. And he doesn’t even have angry tweets.
“Klain is responsible for shaping the president’s domestic agenda...”
did I say Biden was not elected? My statement was a counter to the “election was rigged” idea. I don’t know whether it was or not. Do you? Can you prove it either way?
I’m not sure what party you think I belong to but let me help you. NONE. Former Occupy participant, Iraq war protestor, Salon reader, MSNBC watcher.
NOW: observer of insanity, libertarian-leaning independent
Your reply has no useful point. If you’re actually interested in sharing ideas here that would be great. Or you can continue to scroll through posts and make random pointless comments.
All this thread reminds me of one of my favorite Orwell quotes: "IF LIBERTY MEANS ANYTHING AT ALL, IT MEANS HAVING THE RIGHT TO TELL SOMEONE SOMETHING THEY DO NOT WANT TO HEAR"
Another Good point, Scott. We're moving further away from transparency than ever. I've been trying to get copies of FFX Co. School Board's annual review of our Superintendent (under my VA FOIA rights) for years now. Denied every time; on the grounds that a seeing how my School Board views the annual performance of it's highest paid executive (almost $1/2M) is "personal" information.
It's one thing to address the outrageous salaries of administrators, a reason why property taxes are out of control, and another thing entirely to complain about the social studies curriculum as if historical facts should not be taught! And, then, to organize a political campaign on false stories about curricula is another lie from the Republican machine!
Can you explain the alleged false political campaign being organized by the Republican machine in public schools? I find the premise laughable.
To my knowledge, all school board members in my County are aligned with the Democratic progressive political platform. As an example, please note that Fairfax (FFX) Co. tax payers were obligated to pay Author Ibram Kendi $20,000.00 to give a 45 minute video virtual presentation on Aug. 6th, 2020 to FFX Co. Public School officials titled "Cultivating an Anti-racist School Community". This presentation was officially sponsored by the FFX Co. School Board. Add to that mix the fact that there is only 1 District supervisor in FFX Co. that is Republican with the remaining 9 members being registered Democrats--- and your premise appears to crumble.
Tech has solved lots of problems at least temporarily until it is superseded by other tech. Perhaps that is the best we can hope. Freedom of speech grew out of the movable-type press, which made broader dissemination of more ideas faster and easier until very, very recently. Democracies arose when the weaponry available to citizens was roughly equal to the weaponry available to the state. Workers were strongest when tech was advanced enough to make them immensely valuable to capital but advanced enough to make them irrelevant. Dialup made centralized control of the internet impossible until it was replaced by broadband. And on and on.
Either someone invents an end run around big tech, and pro to, or the world is screwed.
"Dialup made centralized control of the internet impossible until it was replaced by broadband"
Not quite sure I follow that one.
"Either someone invents an end run around big tech, and pro to, or the world is screwed."
Perhaps. But it's worth recalling that big tech had a very different culture in the recent past - or is that another fact we're all collectively memory holing so we have convenient targets to hate? Cultures can change with time. I'm not old but in my life I've seen:
* Twitter go from the "free speech wing of the free speech party" to what it is today.
* Microsoft go from being the Evil Empire to a rehabilitated, productive and (mostly) respected member of the software community. Certainly the most recent generation of programmers would think you're a bit weird if you engaged in a 90s style Microsoft-as-the-great-satan rant.
Yet, they are the same organizations, with a great number of people who were there in both phases. Cultures can change, and quite fast too.
A lot of what's going on here are symptoms of bigger problems that aren't tech specific - wokeism is a universal plague, it's not something specific to Silicon Valley. The need to constantly virtue signal speaks to a deep seated uneasyness with the world, an uncertainty about what a good person is and how you become one. In the past religion fulfilled this role, and religion of course was constantly trying to cancel heretics, control language, and gave its adherents lots of formalized ways to virtue signal. A nice friendly turn-the-other-cheek Christian might seem preferable to a woke person *now*, but again cultures change and it wasn't always so.
The ultimate solution to this doesn't lie in cryptography or peer to peer networks, and I say that as a programmer with expertise in both. They might buy time or opportunities, at best. But ultimately this is a meme war, and the mightiest weapons are ideas. Wokeism is ascendant at the moment because it's a set of ideas that meet needs people have, even if maybe they can't explain why or don't want to explain why. The solution is not to try and run from people with those ideas but to fight for their minds, with better ideas.
Agree, Swagman. But, knowing what should 'be' and making it actually 'be' is hard. I think most of the comments to Matt's article are lamenting that what you suggest is NOT happening. Most of the comments don't sound (to me) all that optimistic that it will be happening anytime soon.
It's absolutely astonishing how many liberals right now simply do not understand how crucial it is that we live by the "I may hate every word you say, but I'll fight to the death for you right to say it" thing--because right NOW, their policies and people are in power. Glenn Greenwald talks about this all the time -- they can't see the principal --ends justify means.
It's probably going to be a distributed technology like IPFS, or something hard to track like TOR hidden services. Problem is, non-technical people can't easily get to those.
OR...a super-massive Coronal Mass Ejection Event that wipes out the comm satellites. We're due for one as large or larger than the 1859 Carrington Event.
There will be some minor side-effects, like a shortage of cute pics of cats and grandchildren, and the collapse of civilization, but hey: No Twitter Blue Checks! Nothing worthwhile is free.
Perhaps a derivative of Crypto-Currency systems? I've read Bitcoin, et al, very hard to trace. Piggyback technology of some sort? I agree with Mr. Bob below on TOR. TOR a long way from point-and-click. Intercept News site had extensive article on how to use TOR. Not light reading. For me anyway.
Here's a thought. The National Farmer's Alliance, the highly successful workers' movement of the 1800s that almost created a third party strong enough to challenge the duopoly until it was infiltrated, had more than 1,000 newspapers and periodicals available free or at low cost, and 40,000 traveling lecturers to speak to the populace and educate them on the real causes of their pain. The only way those can be stopped is overt action by government entities. What if going retro is the answer?
I find this side discussion of Crypto illustrative of the fact that money is not real. How we have built a whole world's economy on something that is an illusion is just fascinating.
Bitcoin is rather easy to trace. Some alternatives like Monero aren't.
I believe there are already some experimental programs for storing data on a blockchain in an immutable way. Problem is I don't know how well it will scale. Storing transaction records for Bitcoin is already getting pretty slow. Now consider how much data videos would require. I don't know if there's a way to optimize that that makes sense.
Ugh. And, of course, lurking in the shadows is that 'advertising' and all its associated activities are what actually pay for the infrastructure of Social Media. And, Merchants like to NOT be associated with 'unpopular-ness' these days. Unwinding well funded monopolies always hard.
I read somewhere that it’s only easy to trace if you buy on an exchange. And less so if you buy independently and store in your own wallet. Is there a difference?
Going a little more into educated guess territory here, but... not buying it from an exchange might make it harder to connect to a real name, but it's still fairly easy to connect it to a wallet address. The blockchain is public, and anybody can see who sent coins to who, when, and how much. I'm also not sure how much network information could be gleaned from this (connecting an IP address to a transaction/wallet, and at that point you're pretty much got).
In order to counter this, you need to obfuscate the transaction trail in some way, which is what Monero (and I think Oxen) do.
There are several privacy-centric altcoins that make it very difficult to trace transactions. Monero is one such project, but so is ZCash (https://z.cash/) and MimbleWimble (https://www.mycryptopedia.com/mimblewimble-explained/). They do require some work to understand and use properly, but are viable alternatives for those willing to learn how to use them.
There is no more "left" or "right". There is only authoritarianism and anti-authoritarianism. We have to let go of the old political frames if we're to survive the coming authoritarian onslaughts
It depends. If we hold our own government to account - and not eat the daily dog food of American exceptionalism, put pressure on power's grip in the media and find real ways to resist that show the rest of the world that they are not wrong to want a multi-polar world (maybe we have a chance).
However, the counter-argument is that we have treated so many across the world so poorly (see Venezuela as one example), that it would not take very much for the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, the Vietnamese, or the Iranians to seek revenge in this kind of world and get their decades long pound of flesh they have been wanting --- so we are not only bad actors in this hegemony, but really shitty teachers of democracy/capitalism. One could see this coming around as blowback.
Sorry, but that's "Affluenza" talking. Anyone under 50 has literally no idea how fucked-up the late-Sixties and Seventies were. When you literally can't find a menial job, like stocking or dish-washing, to feed your family, THAT's bad times. When your national industries are turning out new "cars" where parts fall off, THAT's a problem, etc.
I'll be the first to say we've got to deal with the New Fascism, but...we will.
I remember in 2015 or 2016 Hillary Clinton saying that we need to "get rid of" Drudge and Rush Limbaugh. Well, they did, one by buyout and the other of natural causes. They also put an end to uncensored commenting on The Daily Mail and ended it entirely on Yahoo - all before the 2020 election. But truth keeps cropping up, here and on other sites, and the authoritarians are forced to play whack-a-mole. Left and right unite. Keep the faith. Never give up.
I think there are two groups of people on the 'left' nowadays. Those who adhere to traditional leftist principles (less income inequality, universal health care, suspicion of big business, advocacy for free speech, etc.) and those that are reflexively against whatever conservatives might approve of. Unfortunately the latter group, which was precipitated out during the Trump years, predominates these days.
There aren't two groups on the left nowadays. That's your imagination searching for logic where there is none. BTW, what does "predominate" add to your point vs. dominate? Look up the definitions, they are virtually identical. As the late, great George Carlin said: ": Pre-suck my genital situation".
ChesterView is right, and the proof is out there for anyone to see. The latter group they identify, those who are just reflexively opposed to anything from the Republicans, have been at war with the first group ever since Sanders announced his bid in 2016.
Are you disputing that there has been internecine conflict on the left between the moderates and the progressives, or are you disputing my (logical, natural) conclusion that there are, in fact, two camps on the left? Because it seems to me that your original comment is mostly just a flimsy excuse to paint the left with a broad brush.
Appears to be typical infighting in same "camp". Happens on both sides of the isle. I don't see that as different camps. Your effort to paint shades of grey as black and white is folly, in my opinion. As for Bernie, he caved to the camp leader(s) twice. By definition (and logical fact), he is not in a separate camp.
BTW, I'm all for new camps outside of Donkeys and Elephants. Personally I think the People would be a lot better off with as many camps as possible. As George Carlin also famously said, "And I can dream, can't I?"
Agreed. But I would classify the latter group as media-led sheep. Unwitting cheerleaders for a neo-lib establishment which is even more morally bankrupt than the neocons.
Modern attitudes toward speech control basically amount to "shooting holes in the *other* end of the boat is fine, because that's where the bad people are".
President Trump lied a lot less in 4 years than "President" Biden has in one year. In fact Trump was generally correct because he relied on people who actually gave him correct information. His reputation is excellent for asking for and using advice from the right people in his statements. The Central Park Ice Skating Rink is a great example of this, but it is a fact for all of his adult life.
He was correct on almost everything about COVID, from shutting down travel from China in January 2020 (and getting hate from Democrats for that), and reporting that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were helpful in treating early cases (proven by the fact that African countries where these two are used daily have very low death rates from COVID), to arguing that schools should reopen and people get back to work. The book by Scott Atlas, A Plague on our House, which is the standard reference on the U.S. actions in 2020, reports how President Trump was an excellent listener to actual experts like him, but was stuck with Birx and Fauci, who were poorly informed and gave bad advice, but were loved by the media.
Trump asked good questions, often highlighted and framed problems correctly, but his 'implementations' were not at all good. Generating results thru a gargantuan bureaucracy does require strategy and planning. He did not transition well from managing the Trump companies to 'running' the Federal Gov't. Implementing change requires consistency over a longer time frame, and he did not demonstrate that. And, yes, the MSM/press did all they could to disrupt his every action, most notably the ginned up the Russia Narrative. But, he needed some good 'Chief Operations Officers' to fill the 'gap' for day to day activities he did not really like or was not particularly good at.
Well, you have identified the problem he faced. But he couldn't get rid of the people who opposed him. Fauci, Birx, and Collins were disgraceful, but if he fired any of them the Democrats and their press would attack him mercilessly.
Despite all the problems, President Trump is objectively rated good to very good, much better than Obama. He got the economy going well, focused on the middle class (blacks had their lowest unemployment on record in 2019), the tax reform law benefited the lower 80% of earners and only raised taxes on the top level.
His foreign policy was very good +. He focused on the major opponents of freedom, Iran, Russia, and Communist China, in his actions. As we know, he was the first President who came into office well-informed about Communist China. And he was really tough in his actions on Russia, unlike Obama.
His actions on human rights were excellent. Her was the first President to be a supporter of LGBTQ rights (and was for a long time before becoming President). He was the strongest supporter of religious freedom of all of our Presidents. He took effective actions to support women's rights after the disastrous Obama Presidency (the Iran deal was the worst U.S. attack on women's rights of our lifetimes, maybe ever, given Iran $50 billion, almost all of which was used to expand their attacks on women).,
The money that Iran received for making the Iran Nuclear Deal was merely an unfreezing of overseas assets around $300-500B. The Deal was made with the approval of the UN Security Council. The idea that Trump rejected was to stop Iran from making the bomb. Now, that Trump is out, Biden is trying to restore the Deal because the world does not need any more nuclear weapons. But, how can we expect Trumpish Republicans to understand?
Yeah the US really believes that the world doesn't need any more nuclear weapons, which is why they signed off on a TRILLION dollar nuclear weapon modernization plan back in 2016 rather than working towards nuclear non-proliferation:
Obama's money allowed the Iranian government to increase its uranium ore by 70% and its number of centrifuges to enrich the uranium by 50% by the time President Trump put an end to the funneling of money to them. The deal places no permanent limits on Iran's continuing to use these resources after 2025. And thanks for the compliment! Trump's supporters are much better informed than those with TDS!
You're fairly accurate. The problem was, and remains, that Trump was temperamentally unqualified to be President. Everything had to be over the top, a disagreement was always taken personally. One cannot be President with exceptionally thin skin.
He was rude and crude, offending the sensibilities of the "sophisticates" who today constitute the leadership of the Democratic Party. If he runs again, he will have great difficulty winning. Yes, we got rid of an alleged authoritarian and replaced him with a real one.
How was he "rude and crude"? He listened carefully to people who had genuine knowledge.
Read Scott Atlas's definitive book about President Trump's activities on COVID during August through October 2020. For example, Dr Atlas arranged for four of the world's leading epidemiologists to come to Washington in the hopes of meeting with President Trump. A five minute meeting was set up. It actually lasted almost an hour, as President Trump asked them questions and listened carefully to their answers (pages 215-218).
There are many other examples. The correct statement about President Trump would be "cordial and informed".
Now he was sometimes "crude" in dealing with the Democratic Party media, but they deserved it for publishing so much fake news over RussiaGate alone, and regularly not listening to his answers to their questions.
In fact President Obama had a much thinner skin, recognizing he was ill-prepared to be President and had to cover up numerous major scandals.
Trump was a routinely disinterested and unorganized businessman, not a deep thinker or planner but more a BS'ing bluster boob, who used his art of BS to con people. He did know one fundamental of interpersonal relations and that is to never explain yourself, merely carry on with the BS and use that great fat filled face to merely stare down whoever was opposite him.
Which is why he fit so well into the cesspool of our political elites.
Trump was in fact very organized and focused on getting the best advice from the best-informed people. His success in getting the right people and listening to their advice in the Central Park ice rink renovation is a great example from the early 1980s (he asked the NY Rangers management and they told him to get a specific person with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and he did so, and let that person run the project and it worked great) and his purchase of Mar a Lago became a success thanks to his listening to his attorney in Palm Springs, who told him not to divide the property up and sell for people to build houses, but to construct a club. There are many other examples.
No, I meant Trump, the man who couldn't make money running casinos, a feat that requires some monumental incompetence. Last I recall, he had 11 business bankruptcies.
One of the reasons I doubted the Trump/Russia collusion farce, besides the fact Trump was more confrontational with Russia and its allies than any US president since the collapse of the USSR, was the Donald is incapable of concentrating on anything requiring detailed knowledge/planning. Simply put, he doesn't have time for details.
Biden. like his predecessors, is just a stooge for the US political/economic/military elites whose absolute belief in US exceptionalism/hegemony is one of the factors that resulted in the push of NATO eastward and going a bridge too far, first in Georgia and now Ukraine, needlessly confronting a nation with nuclear weapons right on its border. Their invasion of Ukraine was unjustified even as it was provoked by us, though, in comparison with our 20 year folly in the ME, it was understandable.
One day, our absolute inability to forsake US hegemony will see us confronting the PRC, a nation whose economy will become the world's largest sometime this decade.
In the meantime, rising gas prices, perhaps food shortages and increasing inflation are just the opening showcasing the real cost of US hegemony, which is headed towards ultimate failure.
Freedom isn't free, but it's cheap compared to US global hegemony.
Frenkle, that I think, sums up the issue. Words matter. Had Trump said 'using mouthwash can help, and perhaps help a lot in battling this virus thing' would have been exponentially better than "injecting a disinfectant". I saw his comments on You Tube, and he was sort of thinking out loud when making that comment. But, as President of the United States, have to do your "thinking out loud" in the shower, like Reagan is purported to have done. And yes, what a waste of time, talent, money, lives (mostly Afghan lives) our "war" in Afghanistan was.
But if you watched his comments then you should know that he never did say “drink bleach” or “inject yourself with bleach” or anything remotely close to it.
If anything this episode proved that words don’t matter at all…at least not if you happen to be on the right.
Only the narrative and your party affiliation matter. The powers that be will make up words to put in your mouth to match their preferred narrative.
He was posing a question (“Is there a way we could…?) to an advisor/doctor at the very end of a long press conference.
He mentioned that they were seeing great results with UV light and various types of disinfectants in laboratory settings.
Then he essentially asked…Is there a way to replicate these results inside the body? I don’t know…we’ll have to get doctors on that…but I think it could be interesting to look into.
Obviously I’m paraphrasing greatly and reducing the comments down…but that’s the essence of what was said.
In a normal, non-toxic environment…the response to a question like that might be: “That could be interesting to look into” or “Actually we’re already doing something similar with UV light therapy” or “That’s unlikely to work because…”
In other words…a conversation between reasonable people talking about an important subject.
Instead…what we got was: “Trump’s a Dangerous Psychopath Who Wants You to Drink Bleach!!!!!”
Ironically, in an effort to warn the public about dangerous misinformation that maybe 3% of the population would have seen without media amplification…This nonsense was plastered across hundreds of papers, mentioned in hundreds of minutes of air time, and memefied thousands upon thousands of times.
You know. Because the media cares about us so much and really needed to protect us from the bad dangerous man who was about to have millions of people swallowing gallons of bleach. Obviously, the media has to step into the gap and unequivocally tell us hundreds and thousands of times NOT to drink bleach.
Whew. That was a close one. I’m so glad the media was there to set the record straight and shout very loudly for weeks about NOT drinking bleach.
Afghanistan's population in 2001 was around 24M, today it is around 40M, all throughout the "war" the Afghanistan people continued to pump out millions of babies. So, hold the tears about all the dead Afghan's because we finally left. But, when we left, we left them with trained up police, a new regime and plenty of equipment and infrastructure to defend their state, but they immediately capitulated and did not defend themselves. The pathetic Trumpers believe this is horrible, but what is horrible is defending a population which will not fight for their freedom.
You’re so right, shooting bleach into your veins is exactly like gargling with mouthwash! Why did I I never think of this brilliant defense against what those hateful Woke Liberals say about our Dear MAGA King, the Best President Who Ever Presidented, may the Lord Baby Jesus bless him!
McConnell to Trump “ it’s a very small, private club in which you will never be welcome.” That’s it in a nutshell. And always be … because as Matt said, “we” are dangerously malleable.
I read Dr. Atlas's book and was not surprised by one word. I remember the smear campaign that was launched immediately and his every recommendation was attacked.
The last time I posted this comment (on a different Substack) I was called an anti-Semite, but here goes. Jared Kushner apparently believed either: that Birx and Fauci were MAGA supporters OR that they were beloved as Rfhirsch states. Thus politics, one way or the other, determined Trump's response to the pandemic. He indeed do and say the things Rfhirsch outlines above. But he listened to Jared on Birx and Fauci, and thus bears partial responsibility for the ruinous pandemic response that was amplified by Biden. And Trump is still touting the vaccines.
But Birx and Fauci were frauds. Just read Scott Atlas's book, "A Plague on our House". Atlas is one of the world's leading specialists on public health policy, and Trump asked him to come to DC to help get correct policies in place. Atlas reports how Birx, who had no background in public health policy, kept reporting meaningless numbers at the Task Force meetings and then advocating policies that were wrong. Fauci constantly changed his mind on what should be done, and he too was ignorant in public health policy. If Trump had fired them, the policies would have been much better.
We have to find ways of talking about our problems that de-emphasize the individual, the fetish of personality, and the irrelevance of the messenger --- and find a way to talk about systems, institutions, and the underlying networks which lead us to the same outcomes predominantly regardless of which twat is President.
From LBJ to present, we haven't had a decent leader of this country who could think, communicate, mobilize, and assist the majority of Americans for a safer, better life that was not born on hegemony, pay to play corruption, and deceit/fraud.
In fact, with JFK, we only had a small window - a year or two, and then it was shut (most everything before that and everything after the window was owned by the tripartite state of Corporations/Business, Military, and Covert Intelligence institutions). The key to solving any problem is knowing exactly what it is, so that it can be changed.
No one individual can or will change these networks. No President. No religious leader. No Musician. These networks are designed to withstand the cult of personality or groups/blocs of a few. Then again, I am sure you know all of this.
President Ronald Reagan certainly fits your definition: "a decent leader of this country who could think, communicate, mobilize, and assist the majority of Americans for a safer, better life that was not born on hegemony, pay to play corruption, and deceit/fraud." He also is considered one of the best informed Presidents on taking office.
I have read Atlas' book. I know and understand Birx and Fauci were/are frauds. I agree they should have been been fired. that they were not was SOLELY due to politics. So Trump bears some responsibility for our two year nightmare.
I can't seem to find any reference in here from supporters of 45 and his conversations with Bob Woodward about how bad the virus was and how he admitted playing it down. His press conferences during the daily briefings were campaign speeches. The fact that it didn't disappear in spring or after the election as he said shows his lack of knowledge. Saying he did all the economic gains is BS also as they started during the Obama years and there are charts that prove that. Why is it that republicans drive the car in the ditch every time they are handed one that is working. Why is it oil prices jump so high with Dems in control after the wrecker pulled the economy out of the ditch. I consider myself an independent who leans to the left socially and in the on middle economic issues. To hear someone say 80% tax break went to low income and middle-class is double speak. Facts show otherwise as does my tax return since 2017 when it passed with no debate in the middle of the night. The republicans don't want to govern or don't know how to do anything to help anyone but the 1%.
As a sidebar,how do you think Americans would feel if they saw the daily bombings in Iraq like we see know in Ukraine. The country looked like Florida with its concrete homes. When we go after Putin for war crimes does Cheney and the WHIG get the Hague treatment too? I left out George,not that I liked him,but because the invasion of Iraq was decided by PNAC before W was given the presidency by the Scotus decision to stop the counting 4 days early in Florida with the bullshit Equal protection decision.
The revisionism you are practicing here is deeply amusing, I’m almost convinced you believe it. Correct on almost everything about COVID, you say? Like injecting bleach to treat it, or how it’s all going to be gone by Easter 2020?
It's ironic that you talk about revisionism, and then you have that last sentence. If you provide here links to the actual statements he made with regards to those two examples, I challenge you to then demonstrate how you're not the one practicing revisionism.
You’re right, he doesn’t say bleach, but rather “disinfectant.” I was wrong. I think most reasonable people who listen to this, though, would find the President’s remarks to be silly and deeply misinformed:
I was also wrong that he said it would specifically be gone by Easter, though he did say many times that it would go away or was going away pre-Easter 2020:
Thank you for at least partially acknowledging the ways that your statement was misleading, most people wouldn't have the honesty to do that. Of course, you did still continue to misrepresent the content of what he said, as those links you provided make clear, so you only get partial credit.
I'm not at all arguing for how well or ill informed Trump is, I don't really care. But I do strongly agree with Matt Taibbi when he said that Trump is both the most lying and the most lied about president in history, and it bothers me when people invent bullshit or misrepresent him when there are actual real things to criticize him on.
Your statements belong in the same bag as the "good people on both sides" Charlottesville lie that are standard go-tos that people bring up endlessly, so commonly used that they are a pretty good indicator of whether the person you are talking to actually knows about the topic at hand or have only ever heard the misrepresentation and are parroting what they heard without ever bothering to look into it for themselves.
The left controls the mainstream media, hollywood, K-12 education, the social media moderators, academia, publishing, the administrative state, and corporate HR and PR departments.
The left's point of view is the hegemon. Yet, it still feels threatened if a couple nobody social media platforms don't sing in its preferred hymnal.
The left has zero power in this country. There is noting left about the Dems, other than some meaningless cultural posturing.
Absolutely the dumbest political question I've these last thirty years is "Where did all the moderate Repubs go to?", when the answer is they took over the Dem party in the 1990's.
Orwell's (and Matt's) point entirely. Left/Liberal/Progressive/authoritarian/fascist/conservative/right/transphobe/homophobe/islamophobe/arachnophobe... all meaningless words getting more meaningless every day.
I think we need to re-understand the definition of “left.” We (and I include myself) continue to conflate the new left with the traditional liberal or Democrat. I think This is where we keep getting hung up and disoriented.
For the left the labels “right” “conservative” “Republican” have always been pejoratives. This left continue to use terminology to maintain the veneer of their familiar brand of the 20th and early 21st century.
Meanwhile those of us who have been turned off and away creating a whole new pool of “the other” Anyone not with them is the enemy. Those who don’t want to risk being excommunicated have no choice but to go along.
These people are a whole new breed. this ideology seems to be an amalgam of globalist-Marxist using identity and the promise of social, economic and environmental utopia thru diversity, inclusion and control. Control the media control the language control the narrative control behavior. The tactics and the motives are familiar
I don’t know what to call them other than dangerous.
Left/Right and liberal/conservative have become meaningless in terms of modern politics. For awhile I used 'Team Red' and 'Team Blue' but even that doesn't fit anymore. Either you're aligned with the globalist religion or you're not. I suspect refusing to bend the knee will carry an increasingly heavy price tag as time goes on.
The semantics are not all that important, but I would describe them as Globalist-Fascist. They are basically fascist minus the nationalist aspect that was so important in the 20th century. They use idpol/neo-Marxism as a tool to keep people divided, but it doesn't seem to be one of their animating principles. As you said, it's all about control. My guess is they're looking at economic and demographic trends, and they see huge risks of instability looming in the future. The increasingly aggressive measures to exert control may be an attempt to get ahead of that.
Personally, I don't see how the current alliance between the people you're describing with Big Tech/Business, Media, and the Academy CAN'T be called Fascism, but people go crazy when you do, so Totalitarian works as a substitute
I refer to the "left" as the Democrats, liberals, neocons, the mainstream media, the identity politic groups, the administrative state, collectivists and the cultural left.
I know that term triggers a lot of people, but the differences between Sanders leftists and liberals is not big enough IMO to distinguish.
Bottom line, "democrats" and "liberals" do not represent the breadth that is the Borg. And the Borg needs a name. It has been named "the left"
This is an inaccurate usage of the left. It groups Matt Taibi & Glenn Greenwald in with Biden & neocons. "The left" does not mean "everyone I don't like."
I understand. But Matt and Glenn share most of the same philosophies of Biden and the neocons re social issues, government spending priorities and tax policy. They are more similar than they are different.
And ultimately, that is the bucket they are put in. I know left-lefties have issues, and the term is not perfect, but it is the name the Borg has been given.
I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or a serious question (given that, in the article, Matt portrayed the word "whataboutism" as a modern day Orwellianism), but in the interest of civility I'll assume you're really asking.
It's not whataboutism. OP described Truth Social as a "free-speech-oriented" platform, which is obviously not a truthful characterization. If I had brought up Truth Social as a contrast to some complaint about Twitter or Facebook censoring people, that would be a fair criticism.
The key component of whataboutism is the arbitrary introduction of some new concept to try and rebalance a discussion in one's favor. It's more like a sub-species of strawman argument, where you take a specific criticism of one thing and convert it into a comparison between that thing and something else - implying that criticism of one requires approval of the other.
LOL.. c’mon, you know that’s silly… you don’t think the DNC is trying to figure out how to market their candidates style as more Trumpiam? Hillary was a lesson in “ how not to run a campaign”
True story….. when the Energy Tsar ( they might want to drop that title) recently suggested that “ investing in green energy can end inflation” … I commented in a friend’s post “ Monsieur Kerry should be hung by his Hermés ties” ( French silk, $225) … FB sent me a notice that my language is threatening and dangerous…..😂😂😂😂😂 such pansies with no sense of humor..
Now there’s a classic example of Zuckerberg, Dorsey , Google etc can shut down Trump but Trump starts a social network, follows their lead and 3,2,1… heads explode!! “ I can even” which my daughter demands I stop saying…
Okay, if your veins are still oozing with TDS bile at this point…. You really don’t understand how complicit the media has been in vilifying non politician Trump and giving Biden a 24/7 pass… what lie did Trump tell that’s worse than Biden lying about the innocent truck driver being drunk and killing his first wife?? And milking this bold faced lie on the campaign trail… for decades…..
I did not and still do not like Trump, but I do agree that you are right about the difference in coverage. Biden is far worse on so many levels and he gets nothing but cheer leading by the MSM.
I agree, but to me, an Independent who lived in Europe long enough to not jump into the binary fold, I found it most curious and telling how adversely most people reacted to his nerve to enter the political arena… “ he has no experience, he’s not a politician “.. ME: yea, so?? And also ME: “ why do I have to belong to a party to vote?” And PS.. I have my own personal Biden highly inappropriate story from 48 years ago, so, his badmouthing Trump about the “way he treats women…” .. please, they are all such liars.
I’m not, because the two times my story began to get traction, I received a threatening email and FB message with my grown kids addresses and cell#s. The second time when Tara Reade and other women had come forward, I received a text advising me to not “proceed “…. This happened in the 70s, drunken ass grabbing male passengers were a dime a dozen, “ HR” as we know it did not exist. I was not traumatized by the actual incident…I was however certainly rattled when contacted by apparent Biden goons…and was told by one media contact that this is SOP to scare accusers. Mission accomplished… and no, I was not about to hire an attorney. The lesson I learned : like everybody else, don’t assume journalists to be honest in their intentions.
That’s not my argument. My argument is that the majority of DC and the media will never give a non politician a fair chance. Like that song “ Don’t Rock the Boat, Baby” Look what they did to Bloomberg, what the heck was that all about ?
Hey, thanks for the insults…I’ll only respond that on a global level, maybe Trump doesn’t see the value of endless military involvement… like where we go in and destabilize third world countries so our MIC can continue to be a cash cow for vendors and keep politicians $$ re elected… maybe it’s time to consider being “ frenemies” so everyone understands where the lines are drawn… and we are not always having a global DICK OFF over who has the biggest arsenal? Maybe re direct some of those obscene amounts of money to our societal woes that now especially with COVID are doing years of collateral damage. And lastly, and I’m breaking my own rule here… when I was a rather cute 24 year old stewardess , newly minted widowed Senator Biden let his fingers do the walking under my uniform while serving him cocktails… inquiring about “the Mile High Club.” And when my story got traction, I and my grown children got threats via texts and emails. So stop ASSuming. There may be so many private sector people who could be incredible leaders for this country.. but DC made sure that won’t happen. George Carlin “ it’s a big private club and you ain’t welcome.” I truly believe this paradigm needs to go. We are doomed to mediocrity and Jerry Springer theatre.
Are there any of our great leaders that aren't psychopaths? And once again we have allowed them to take control of our world. The blame game is a distraction to keep people fighting each other. The answer to "Which one is a fault? Who is the worse?" is "Yes."
I think Coolidge and Eisenhower lived in a different world, so it is harder to discern their qualities. Nor do I think I know much about Reagan. He was, after all, an actor.
To quote a well-known rabbi, 'By their fruits you shall know them.'
The problem for any aspiring great leader is the essential nature of the game which they're trying to get into, which some have called Realpolitik (although the word has been given different meanings). In Realpolitik, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." What matters is power. That is the political version of psychopathy -- a lack of concern for others (unless they serve the purpose). There are, of course, other moral frameworks, but to the committed believer in Realpolitik these are fluff, what matters is what you can make other people do. Benevolence, affection, humanity, even leaving people alone, do not further the aims of Realpolitik / psychopathy except to the extent that those who prefer them can be tricked. I would think this would be obvious.
It is true that one great leader may do more damage than another, but that seems to be a matter of opportunity rather than a difference of intention.
President Trump is ranked as the third toughest President on Russia and the Soviet Union, behind only Truman and Reagan. He took at least 10 actions against Russia. President Trump is the only President so far to be fully informed about Communist China, and he was extremely tough on them with his actions, as well. Unlike Biden (and Obama) President Trump knows how to negotiate. He says nice words about people, but he is extremely tough in his actions. It is how successful negotiating is done.
Talking or posting about individual personalities in an entire series of political networks of power is like taking a single granule of sand and saying hey look at this desert.
It polishes up the profile of spectacle, and de-emphasizes all of those mechanisms of the deep state that have been fucking us for so long (networks, political alliances, boards of directors, contracts, partnerships, lobbying, NGO's etc..).
When will people learn that arguing over who is President (bad or worse) in this country is a legitimate waste of time and a construction of the wealthy to get you distracted over matters in which they control both parties? All of them are idiots and controllable - that's the entire point. We do not live in a democracy, just a sacrifice zone of illusion.
Well, there's 'Orwellian', and then there is 'laughable' and 'comical'. As with many things Trump, usually a tossup between any of those three categories.
Your comment is a little ironic in that I find this isn’t a left or right thing anymore. In fact the left/right argument is a cornerstone of that same book. It’s just manifested in the oceans war. Matt’s closing thoughts do a good job of putting a point on this. And I agree with your sentiments at their core. Isolation of one’s perspective is the worst vantage anyone can take or promote.
It's easier to plant false flags on internet media platforms that only a small percentage of people visit. You sell some crazy story to the out of touch elites in the NYT, and to the yokels who consume Fox News and since neither target market cares about the freedoms of people deemed "outside the group", it's as simple as a 24 hr news cycle and subsequent bans.
Probably it'll be a relief when the nukes start flying.
If that's the kind of thing people might laugh at, then either they have strange senses of humor, or I do. Because I agree with that sentiment and don't understand why it would be funny to anyone. I'm worried about the long-term future of those platforms, though, given what happened to Parler.
If I were to express my opinions freely, I would risk social and material consequences and not just for myself. So I don't. This is the outcome for someone committed to an anti-establishment and skeptical frame of reference. I find it very stressful. I get one or two good nights sleep a week. I think I'd suffer less if I were a natural double-thinker, i.e. an unselfconscious double-thinker, unlike Winston.
When I was a young man, I studied in the Soviet Union. I felt so bad for the Russians I knew that lived in fear of expressing their true opinion about events, politics or anything. I couldn't imagine ever needing to do that. I did my part to protect my freedom, like joining the 1980s ACLU. Now I live with the same kind of fear. Say what you think and you could lose your job, your professional standing and the simple ability to participate in society.
This is so true. Everything that we learned was bad about the USSR and China is now part of our so-called "Democracy." Many of us are old enough to see this.
Years ago, I knew a Soviet Refugee who was returning to Putin's Russia because he saw that the US was quickly becoming what he remembered the USSR was. Many of us saw the pattern, even before 9/11, but the masses are more and more entranced by the MSM twisting of "facts." Lately, because of the recent Corona crisis, many former Soviets had noted that modern Russia had once again become what the Soviet Union used to be. It seems we get all the bad parts of Communism and all the bad parts of Capitalism and we are set against one another to fight about it.
Time to take the best of what works - which is not what the WEF has come up with. They themselves admit that their might be a yet unheard of solution to modern day problems...but their 4th Industrial Revolution is the best they can do and they will use current events to implement the agenda without our complete knowledge or ascent.
Everyone should take the time to read about the 4th Industrial Revoultion - something that Putin and Biden alike support. This conflict is to once again keep us distracted while we continue to give up our rights in the name of "freedom" - a freedom totally controlled by AI and techocrat forces who have no room in their world for the actual human heart. None of us, in Ukraine or elsewhere should be willing to shed their humanity for this misguided 4th Industrial Revolution.
It is time for the WEF to have honest talks with the suppressed voices. Let the people actually decide and it will be that some will truly want to live in the WEF future. But many will not and given the track record of previous industrial revolutions, none of them worked out well in the end for the earth or the actual people - but they always make the elite more and more powerful.
This it is time to say, not no, but wait! More discussion needed. The WEF has been one sided in its approach and needs balance. Full disclosure is the best way forward. Most wars come about because of lies and lack of full disclosure - which result in the hoi polloi taking up arms. War is a racket.
The elites will NEVER ask what we want or think. They believe they know best. After all, they are all wealthy, well-educated, powerful and successful - all of which points to their superiority. Interestingly enough I believe most if not all of the players are white. I guess DIE isn’t so DI at the top
Mearsheimer would say that is not how great powers behave. They do what they want when it serves their interests (military, corporate and intelligence being the three most powerful).
And I might quibble with your characterization slightly. They do know what we think without having to ask (they read our e-mails, get our texts, read our social media) and have programs/models designed to capture all of the relevant data - so that they do not have to ASK us anything. This is much worse and probably what you are referring to (they NEVER have to engage us) but they know what we want and what we think thanks to technology companies, the media propaganda, and the desire to avoid domestic blowback.
Ooh, do tell LorriAnn. Is it all whites who are guilty by association or just a certain subgroup? Any religions you want to blame specifically? Come on, spill the beans! Who are you targeting?
I agree 100%. I went to the USSR in 1971 on a 3 week HS trip. While we were not permitted to have much contact with the people, I know how stifling the atmosphere was and felt bad for the people. Today my kids know not to speak their minds except with family and very close friends. Very sad…
I made a similar trip in 1984. I can see where the "atmosphere" could be considered less than inspiring. However, as a lower middle class scrub I will say that I felt safer there (Moscow, St. Petersburg, etc.) than on any of my "sightseeing" trips to N.Y.C. I can also say I feel bad for people I have seen sleeping regularly on (and under) cardboard in D.C., San Diego, and L.A. for the past 40 years. Not sure what the situation is in the Russian Federation today, but I can honestly say that I never saw anyone sleeping on the streets in the U.S.S.R. while I was there.
Like anywhere, it depends on what socio-economic class level you experience a city---as well as what parts you visit. If you're living on the high end of the hog, then I doubt any metropolis would be perceived as stifling.
Why would you teach them to be so fearful? The U.S. is not remotely like the U.S.S.R. in the '70s. It is only because U.S. Progs have so enthusiastically embraced suicidal self-censorship that one might even consider such a far-fetched comparison. If you want to hide in the shadows, fine--but don't pull your kids in with you
I feel like what sets this moment apart from many of the forgotten/fading panics Matt mentions is that the globalist-billionaire-tech-Pharma cabal are so close to realizing their dream of total surveillance and control of everyone. Not just the USSR bloc, not just China, but the entire world.
As Matt had pointed out many times, the left and the right in the U.S. have flipped sides in 20 years’ time. It was never about Dems vs GOP. The real battle has always been the rich fucks who pay politicians to write the laws in their favor and use the police and military to enforce those laws (or “mandates”).
The consequences of letting these creeps get their way on a global level will be so much more devastating than losing one’s job or social standing — collectively, yes, and for future generations but also for most of the individuals reading this column.
If enough people realize this — soon enough — this moment could change the entire course of human history. Because there are way more of us than there are of them and their power resides chiefly in the kind of trickery Matt is talking about here. If enough of us break out our pitchforks and call “bullshit” all at once they have to back down.
It's not obvious to me that the Western globalist oligarchs will emerge the winners from this war. Idk what's going to happen but the global schism now starting to unfold _may_ partition the world so that Iron Curtain 2 surrounds Nato, not Russia, as the rest of the world dedolarizes their trade and reserves. The US$ may end up being the reserve currency of Nato, not of the planet. This would deliver unprecedented power and wealth to certain Western industries by removing the competition from exports from Russia/RoW from the Nato market. But it does not deliver planetary control. In a sense, this scenario is the end of global hegemony of $-based economic liberalism.
Sadly, I think the American Empire would take the world out before losing this battle — and it has the fire power to do it. The “last” empire might be our Great Filter.
Takes organization and courage. A number of people were angry about what they perceived to be a fraudulent election. A disorganized disturbance destroyed many of their lives.
Yep, my first thought reading the above was the Canadian truckers. It actually looked like they might succeed for a minute.
One side has a legal monopoly on force. One side controls all the money. One side controls the flow of information. And they have secret police to disrupt or subvert any threats.
If it was "on the way," why did Trudeau attempt to seize their bank accounts? You are a rube if you think that this is the behavior of a government that intends to go along with their demands.
I don’t know about that. I was listening to the Winnipeg/St Louis game yesterday broadcast on a Canadian radio station. They ran a PSA about proof of injection to cross the border. Also did you know you can’t get into CA if you have a DUI on ur record? They included that in the same announcement which I thought was a pretty interesting mix. LOL
I am so with you - though I can’t help but ask myself everyday: “How can we build a counter-Revolution when we can’t even manage to mobilize a truck convoy?” We say “we can fight this.”
I forgot who said this but it was something like, socialists never say “how,” they’re going to accomplish their objectives. I feel like those of us who want to fight are the same. Right or wrong I think one of the reasons I don’t walk away from the corporate cesspool is there isn’t a larger plan. I sure don’t have one. And it feels like we’re shouting into a void.
That’s because you are. See you and people like you are like spark plugs in a car. In this case the driver is trying to start the car with the wrong fuel mix. You have relevance but it’s like that old trope about the broken watch. I am not trying to put you down, I’m just saying that you need to understand and learn patience. Keep your powder dry.
People don’t stand up in any meaningful way until they no longer care whether they live or die. That takes a long time, decades perhaps and by then everyone will have long since been disarmed.
No need to disarm anyone when thought control is now perfected science. That aside, you were never going to stop a Marine division with your beloved AR 74. lol
Yes! Thank you, which is why people who won't stand up for obvious lies are as much a part of the problem as the people openly advocating for them. You think it's bad now? You want to preserve your job for your kids? What will be left if you don't?! What world will your kids live in? Don't you see the consequences will be so much worse?
2 yrs ago I came close to losing my job when my family decided Im a racist and one of them “anonymously” reported me to my employer. Since then I’ve asked myself what different does it make if I lose everything now or 10yrs from now? If the Great Reset is a thing then my savings will be worthless, my home will be worthless and my white privilege will be punished with a low social credit score. Problem is there are so many issues and crises I don’t know where to start. Local politics seems like a good idea but this fish is rotting from the head down and we need big numbers FAST.
Hello there, fellow white person. Your story of a family member reporting your to your employer for racism sounds like just the kind of thing white people would do, amiright?
I might quibble a little. Many have suffered, but they do not have enough information with which to direct their energies.
For example, if the Belgian footage of Maidan Massacre (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tVMarKUR2Y ) found in Revealing Ukraine by Oliver Stone, then you would not see as much traction on Putin (as one in a long line of evil doers). We'd see how instrumental Clinton's foreign policy was as Secretary of State, we'd see the rise of Victoria Nuland and Anthony Blinken in the State Department (both Ukrainians and both point people in waging covert war against Russia), John McCain, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden etc... all of this was a part of the plan.
In fact, 2008 in Bucharest they called for NATO to include Ukraine - knowing the Russian response (since the head of the CIA, Burns, was then ambassador to Russia). The RAND Corporation developed a 2019 report explicitly detailing how to "extend" Russia - see here (https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR3000/RR3063/RAND_RR3063.pdf )
We have been planning this provocation, Brzezinski Afghanistan 2.0 for a long time.
So, what we suffer from the most in this country is ignorance (not only what is happening in the world outside of our bubble, but what is happening in the corridors of power). This is what makes me think, like you possibly, it could be too late.
By not speaking freely the consequences will be worse, plus you are teaching your kids to bend over and do bad things for money. Seriously. You are a BIG part of the problem. I spoke out against corporate abuse and lost a six figure job. I then downsized my home for seed money for my own business and now am self employed making the same money only four years later. You can do it. My kids gained hope for a better future and saw an example of living by strong moral principles. They lost a big bedroom. I can live with that.
1. I am a SMALL part of the problem, very small, but not nothing. 2. I have no kids but I take every opportunity to encourage skeptical anti-establishment thinking in all including children. 3. Congrats on your independence. 4. I quit corporate servitude 14 years ago. It took more than 4 years to recover the lost income but we did it. Now we're a service provider with moral responsibility to the clients and their communities. Alienating them will be a net negative across those involved so I don't want to do that. It would be destructive and I would know that it was motivated by my own narcissism.
Respect. That’s part of the crazy making aspect of where we are at — so many people who are not going to get it and will just dig in deeper if you push them.
I dropped out of the corporate world in 2001 after 9-11 and it also took me years of struggle to carve out a decent living. I probably lost 50 percent of my clients (mostly west coast liberal laptop class) because I wouldn’t toe their lines on Covid, anti-racism, etc.
But if I can help a client or maintain a friendship that adds value to my life and I know that person is too brainwashed to hear my POV, then I don’t try to convert them.
It just ends up causing hostility and in my experience you can’t reason with a true believer.
Single, no children and no safety net. I don’t know what I would do for a living that wouldn’t be moving from one corp monster to another. My current employer monitors our social media accounts now - another form of repression. My education and first career was in journalism - a profession that no longer exists. I’m not 30 anymore so Struggling to survive doesn’t leave much time for activism. Everyday I feel i have to choose between saving my soul or my own ass. I don’t think it’s possible to do both and I live a life of hypocrisy.
You're right. You said you don't want to alienate them. I'm not sure what this means and I should not have assumed it meant shutting them down. You certianly don't have to preach and you should be tolerant. When I talk about standing up for your values it means not breaking the law or doing immoral things just to save your job.
Thank you for your comment. But I only have one life to live, and I don't want to spend the rest of it as a destitute, forgotten martyr. I would rather choose my battles when I at least have some chance of success. I am still trying to get my local staff left behind out of Afghanistan. By necessity, I am making perpetrations to live and unemployed, unplugged life.
I wish we would all try to look at it this way: The only reason so many of us are afraid to stand up and speak out is because we're all confident that few others will speak up alongside us. Just imagine the power we'd have if, say, 80% of the 99% stood up and spoke out? Could they possibly fire or deplatform all of us? That is the main issue... we are not united as a class, whereas for all their rivalry and personal differences, the 1% most certainly are class conscious.
How do we get there? It's not simple to make a population think in a new way and act selflessly in the interest of a mutual goal. If you want to do it without coercion, it takes generations of consistent political mobilization.
Not long ago I was reading the story of a woman who lost her job, her house, most of her friends, and a lot of other things, while putting her family at risk, all because she said the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place. It wasn't anything terrible, either; it was just taken out of context by a few censorious people who made it their self-righteous business to do as much damage as possible. If you read around you will find many such stories. Could be about a war or a disease or school curriculum or diet choices or almost anything. We have reached a stage in the deterioration of our culture and society where such things are par for the course. People now have to pick their battles according to their strength and resources. Sometimes you can do only a very little thing. I don't think anyone should be disparaged for that.
Fair enough, I certainly know that goes on. Please understand though it's, in fact, NOT happening everywhere, or even most places. It happens in organizations that are highly invested in the Progressive POV: academia, tech, NGOs, media, etc. No one works in organizations like those that doesn't at least feel a kinship with that orientation--why would they need to? To many of them, it is their entire raison d'être. I agree it must be awful to work under the thumb of the personality-disordered authoritarians that run those places. Happily, there is a wide world of alternatives, if one is willing to consider them.
Everyone makes choices, and MOST importantly, all humans are deeply and permanently programmed to respond to incentives. When the pain outweighs the positives (or vice-versa), people act, people change.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, and best wishes.
This fear of publicly speaking your mind that you and so many others hold, Tom, is proof that we *do not actually live in a democracy.* This alone should motivate huge numbers of the 99% into a revolt and demand for fundamental change. The problem is, too many loud voices in America only want freedom of speech for popular topics that do not offend certain demographics or which are not perceived as "unpatriotic" during times of war. In other words, saying things that some people might find offensive; or questioning the decisions of the government during its latest war, respectively.
I disagree... in part. I postulate there can be no accumulation or consolidation of power without the enablement or acquiescence of the masses. A critical mass of the public must want the dictatorship for it to coalesce.
Disagree. A critical mass needs to acquiesce to it; what they might "want" is irrelevant. When the existing political, social, or economic arrangements no longer have the adherence of the people, a determined minority can impose a new arrangement. Most will take a "wait and see" attitude.
e. pierce's function on the TK threads is akin to the role performed by the "rat" terriers of old farming yore.
Functioning much like a software algorithm, a "troll" terrier
sniffs out "specific patterns of behavior from online trolls, [and] are more likely to focus on a few threads and post irrelevant content, and they have much lower writing quality than fellow commenters (which isn't much of a surprise)."
And while an algorithm won't shit on your rug or dismiss you as a PSYCHOTIC ASSHOLE TROLL...they won't fetch your slippers either.
I'm going thru exactly the same thing, especially regarding sleep. I've never felt more like a pariah in my life (at 71), and I've always felt like a pariah.
Tom- same for me. I Dont remember ever feeling this helpless and hopeless. I’ve been canceled by family (one of whom went after my job) and booed at by a handful of whatever we call them at a town council meeting. Sometime during the past 2yrs I learned of Yuri Bezmenov’s warnings to the US in the early 1980s. now I look back at my days in college and kick myself for not recognizing the slow creep of division and otherism. I fear that we have reached the acceleration phase detailed by the Soviet propagandist/defector and that there is no turning back.
Who do you believe--yourself or the people attacking you? People attack when they feel threatened, and the slow realization by the public that the Progressive agenda is Totalitarian is an existential threat to them. Sure, it's scary to call bullshit on their nihilism but that is the price of freedom from coercion and gaslighting. The silver lining is that it gets a lot easier once you get used to it.
1. "The elites will NEVER ask what we want or think. They believe they know best. After all, they are all wealthy, well-educated, powerful and successful - all of which points to their superiority. Interestingly enough I believe most if not all of the players are white."
2. "now I look back at my days in college and kick myself for not recognizing the slow creep of division and otherism."
Are you asking if the person who contacted my company’s ethics hotline and sent screenshots of my posts is white? Yes. And my family Is American of Cuban-Spanish descent.
I asked that in a previous comment, but that's not what this comment was about. This comment was merely an observation. It's not every day I see someone pivot within the space of a few posts from spreading racial hatred to bemoaning the media for doing the same. That's all.
If you want to turn a Savonarola-supporting zealot into a Jeffersonian defender of free speech, target the mob on them. It's not hard. Every word or deed by every person can be made to offend someone.
Troll is trolling you. Trolls, like "assholes", lack even the minimum self-awareness to know that they are trolls/assholes which are the same thing, just slightly different flavours of feces.
Don't buy that one. No one can always know what "the truth" is, which is why freedom of opinion matters. It's also not very convincing to claim "truth" as one's own pronouncements.
Anyone who is dependent on an organization for a paycheck... or for third parties to purchase their goods and services is always in danger of expressing himself or herself.
e. pierce's function on the TK threads is akin to the role performed by the "rat" terriers of old farming yore.
Functioning much like a software algorithm, "troll" terriers sniff out "specific patterns of behavior from online trolls, [and] are more likely to focus on a few threads and post irrelevant content, and they have much lower writing quality than fellow commenters (which isn't much of a surprise)."
And while an algorithm won't shit on your rug or dismiss you as a PSYCHOTIC ASSHOLE TROLL...they won't fetch your slippers either.
At the end of 1984 Winston imagines a bullet going through his brain - Big Brother had taken everything from him that mattered: love of language, books, love itself and pressured him by the thing that scared him to most -- so with all of that gone he might as well be dead. Hold onto your memories, write them down. Hold onto your freedom of thought - you know you aren't crazy, even if everyone around you is going along with it. Orwell's book resonates now because humans are predictable and history repeats. It's a great book. Just remember - it costs those idiots on Twitter nothing to come from you. They risk nothing. You are risking a lot - and for that many of us are grateful.
It is depressing even at face value. An absolutely defeatist position. Having children is incredibly meaningful and joyful. I know there is more good than bad in the world, in the universe. When I encounter someone who disagrees I know I can't convince them - it comes from experience, not reason. But damn, choosing to become an evolutionary dead end just to spite the world is the ultimate manifestation of one being oneselve's own worst enemy. If there is a meaning to life, a good one might be to make existence a better place than how we found it. Raising good kids to replace us necessary for that end.
There are people who look at their family, see dysfunction, lack of compassion, empathy, basic things like; feeding your kids, keeping them warm, safe, is beyond them. They may or may not have psychological problems or just don’t care, (some one else will take care of it ie the state, government, grandparents) there is a cost for this, not paid by the parents but paid by children. To people who have great parents, childhoods, are safe warm, fed and have support emotionally, financially, the parents may even like/love their kids. For many, that is a dream. I am glad that I chose no children. A dead end isn’t such a bad thing, I am not thinking of not having kids to spite the world or anything of that sort. I am thinking of saving one kids mine, make believe, not having to live in a post nuclear world, with no safety net, trying to survive every moment of every day. Why would I want my kids be responsible for the mess several generations have made.
I made the decision because of a bad marriage. When it ended I was happy about that. Within a couple of years I felt regret. Now I’m sad about it but at least it’s not their future that keeps me up at night.
I believe your take is correct. But, now that it started, the jokes keep coming. I went and searched for Rainbow Trout of Eastern Europe. I may have poured myself a ridged one a half hour ago.
If we stop laughing we'll be left crying, screaming, or both. I choose to hold onto the laughter as long as possible. And some days the jokes just write themselves.
(the Rainbow Tour was a reference to Evita Peron, who also slept her way to the Vice Presidency. That didn't end so well for her country either)
Not me and I'm 78; I can always end it but it's a one way trip. I hate almost everything that's happening in the Western world but so far my life is good and as long as it's fun, I want it to continue. "Nhil illegitimi carborundum"! Don't let the bastards get you down!
Its "grind you down" and not "get you down". Carborundum is an abrasive they put on sandpaper. If you don't use the word grind then the joke doesn't work.
"Hold onto your freedom of thought - you know you aren't crazy, even if everyone around you is going along with it."
Yes! At times in the past, when I would expend much mental energy on the state of the world and its descent into madness, my therapist would ask me if I ever had suicidal thoughts, and I always had the same response: I'm not the one with the problem.
I loved your comment. I wanted to share that I recently heard someone say that prophets don't predict the future, they make us see our present more clearly. It's more like they open our eyes to see our current times more clearly. I thought that was interesting.
Orwell was, indeed, no prophet. But he saw the world as it was. He wrote amazing and poignant novels that were thinly veiled warnings of our distopian futures-- should we refuse to take action to preserve hard won justice and individual free will. That was way back in 1947.
These warnings have been repeated numerous times since then--- to little avail. I am reminded of Spencer Tracy's warning at the end of the movie "Judgement at Nuremburg" from 1961, Burt Lancaster, a Nazi judge who was referencing the Holocaust to Spencer by lamenting and pleading with his American counterpart for moral salvation by saying: "I never knew it would come to that. You must believe. You must believe." Tracy responded to him by saying, deadpan: "It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent".
The disintegration of powerful societies can always be traced back to a thousand little lashes of the soul.
In fact, Orwell's concept of "the memory hole" wasn't based on his experience of being targeted by Stalin for being a member of the POUM during the Spanish Civil War. It was based on instantly shifting public opinion in Allied countries concerning Stalin after the Soviet Union became one of the "Allies." Orwell had enormous difficulty getting Animal Farm published for that very reason.
I should have done my research before posting my comment. Some of Orwell's influence for the "memory hole" must have been based on his own experience trying to get Animal Farm published. But as D.J. Taylor writes in his book, On 1984: A Biography (2019):
It was here [in Spain], for the first time in his life, that he had seen a totalitarian regime [the Soviet Union] in action, not only bent on liquidating its enemies--there was even a Spanish Communist Party poster emblazoned with the image of a boot stamping 'on all who resist forever'--but manipulating the past to ensure that its own version of history would be the one that survived. It was in Spain, as [Orwell] later acknowledged, that he read newspaper articles that bore no relation to the known facts and saw troops whom he knew to have fought valiantly denounced as cowards and traitors. It was in Spain, too, that he caught the fist warning signs of a phenomenon that would oppress him until the end of his life, a suspicion that objective truth was 'falling out of the world'. In the future, he believed, history books would simply reflect the prejudices of whomever happened to be in power. [There is no citation for that last sentence; in any case, he already saw in Spain that when the Soviet Union took over the Republican side of the Spanish Revolution, truth was already falling out of the world].
Thank you very much for the "likes." Of course, each of you who hit the like icon are familiar with Orwell's experiences in Spain, and know that he couldn't have written 1984 had he not undergone those experiences. The best source I've found on Orwell's experiences in Spain is a book titled Orwell In Spain: The Full Text of Homage to Catalonia with Associated Articles, Reviews and Letters from The Complete Works of George Orwell (edited by Peter Davison; introduction by Christopher Hitchens) (published in 2010). I wouldn't be surprised if each of you were already familiar with the book.
A personal note:
My father wanted to travel abroad from Poland to do his residency after medical school in 1956. Of course, he couldn't go to Western Europe. So he went to Moscow for a year. This was shortly after the "thaw" began. People in Moscow were still afraid to speak to someone from another country--even an Eastern Bloc country--for fear of being accused of espionage.
In the 1990s, my father discovered that from 1973 (four years after we left the country, when I was four years old) until 1979, he and my late mother were on a list of 34 "registered persons" created by Poland's Ministry of Internal Affairs. That list included some of Poland's best-known dissidents. My mother (in 1968) and her father (in 1956, before de-Stalinization began) took on cases representing dissidents in two of Poland's best known human rights cases before the Solidarity era.
I wanted to see the remnants of the system my family escaped, so I lived in Poland for six months in 1988. At that point, there were very few true believers in Marxist-Leninism left in Poland. The Party's control of the country began unravelling rapidly in April 1989.
I just listened to Christopher Hitchens 11 years ago talking about Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church. This is a Holy War. We have seen enough holy wars to understand understanding is not astrology.
In 1992 Canadian Philosopher John Ralston Saul published Voltaire's Bastards (The Dictatorship of Reason in the West).
The attempt to understand Putin through reason is to try to understand insanity.
Listen to Irving Layton in 1960 talking about censorship, poetry and reason to the dumbest of all Canadians the Toronto Intelligentia. Layton talks about Russia, the Soviet Union and the arrogance of the "Reasoned" in a species not inclined to be reasonable.
The arrogance and stupidity of our intellectual elite is nauseating. I know what poetry is and it is hard to argue that Drake isn't among Canada's greatest living poets but they may be right that they own poetry; not the great unwashed for whom it was written.
I think it is time to listen to Jean Redpath sing the songs of Robbie Burns.
I haven't a clue who Alex Dugin and Stephen Kotkin are. I think this is a Holy War. I do know who Christopher Hitchens was. I know who Chrystia Freeland is. I know who Pope Francis is and now Poland and Hungary are at war with the Russian Patriarchy as are the other Orthodox Churches. All Putin has left is the GOP and China and America's belief in "reason".
You are somewhat correct in that this is a continuation of an ongoing war between the Latins (Poland/Austria-Hungary/Germany, etc.) and Russia which is not under Rome. Ukraine had been both under the Western Pope and not under it depending on which side has been in charge. How about Russia and the West both leaving Ukraine alone and let them decide for themselves?
Patriarch Kiril is a leftover from the Soviet Russian Orthodox Church. He has never actually believed in the faith, but has used it for political control. This actually happened during the Stalin era as well - Stalin, like Putin was seen as a renewer of the Church in Russia - although in both cases said Church has been tainted with non-Orthodox Christian agendas...agendas that rea those of the banks and not of the actual Russian People. The Russian People are being attacked both by Putin and the West and religion is being used.
The same is happening in Ukraine - where many share the same faith as the Russians but are divided on political lines. The Azov, however tend to be the Polish and Ruthenians that got stuck in Ukraine and are hard core anti-Orthodox, anti Russia. Then there is the problem that Ukraine has long been the locus of the underworld that oligarchs world over are connected wtih.
Ukraine for Ukraine and time for religion and politics to stay separate. I will never accept the Moscow Patriarchate as a representative of my own Russian Orthodox Faith, because given his past, any true bishop would have stepped down due to the sins committed in the Soviet era. Since this did not happen, I do not consider the Moscow Patriarch to have ever repented from the errors of the Stalin era...
Thus, do know that Putin and Kiril do NOT represent Russian Orthodox around the world, and that includes many dissidents within Putin's Russia.
The actual "war," however is the WEF war on all religion, because religion believes in the dignity of the human being as more than something to be manipulated like an OS by big pharma or digital enslavement.
My forefathers fled Ukraine and the Pogroms in the 19th century. My paternal forefathers fled the Inquisition. I grew up in the Quebec of the Catholic church and the Protestant oligarchs. I went to Protestant schools. I am a secular humanist. There is nothing human about holy wars. They are an abomination Putin is not logical , The Krill is not Logical this goes back to when Moscow was a forest and Odessa and Pella were cities about 2500 years ago.
HIs book wasn't intended to predict the future, but it was set in the future and involves a landscape he could not have possibly lived through first hand. Of course, Stalin's purge of the POUM in Spain opened Orwell's eyes. He experienced the fear of knowing he was on Stalin's wanted list as he and his wife hid in abandoned buildings for about five days, before escaping Spain. But he never lived through the dystoptian nightmare he descrcibed. And he took a lot of inspiration from Zamyatin's We (written in the Soviet Union in 1920-1921; Zamyatin was one of the few openly opposed Stalin, but was allowed to emigrate after he resigned from the Writers's Union in 1929 as his colleagues were denouncing him. Like Victor Serge, he complained directly to Stalin of the oppression he was experiencing, and like Serge, he was allowed to leave the country with Gorky's interrcession. Sometimes thugs and mass murdererers do unpredictbable things, such as allowing their bravest crritics to leave the country. Zamyatin was allowed to leave in the early 30s, and Victor Serge was allowed to leave in 1936 after directly criticizing Stalin for his consolidation of power and persecution of his victims, also with Gorky's intercession. Serge also wrote to Stalin directly, complainining that Stalin had made it impossible for him to work. Gorky the lackey put in a word for both few writers of far higher calibre than him while Gorky felt insulated from the purges, although an interntational campaign by writers on Serge's behalf is what resulted in the sole instance of dissident writer being forced out of the country instead of murdered during the Great Terror of the mid-1930s.
Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev is a masterpiece in the same vein as Darkness At Noon. Serge finished writing the book in 1942, and he died in 1947. Orwell attempted to help Serge get the book published in the mid-1940s, but Orwell could not get Animal Farm published for roughly a year because of the alliance with Uncle Joe. Serge was apparently the first person to describe the Soviet Union as a "totaitarian" state, in a letter he wrote to friends in Paris on the ever of his arrest in Leningrad in 1933.
I'd say The Case of Comrade Tulayev is as powerful a book as 1984.
Like Orwell, Serge fought as a member of the POUM in Spain. Serge was an early member of the Bolsheviks, but he became openly critical of Stalin by 1925 (or a few years earlier). He was first exiled internally before Stalin put him on a train in 1936 going west.
Although 1984 is a better written book in just about everyone's opinion than We, it is very much like Zamyatin's book. Of course, Orwell wrote that he wanted to write the same kind of book as We. Orwell did a much better job conveying the schizophrenic effect of double-think, and of conveying the fear the main character experienced. Zamyatin's main characIer, D-503, was only discovering that he was a person and not just a scientific worker bee assigned to build a space ship. D-503's range of feeling was not nearly as deep as Winston's. We would have been much more like 1984 had it been written from the perspective I-330, the woman who helped lead the revolt against OneState and it's leader, the Benefactor, and recruited D-503 to the cause.
If Zamyatin hadn't beat Orwell to the theme, I would say that limited aspects of 1984 did turn out to be prophetic. There was no privacy in Zamyatin's OneState or in Orwell's Oceana. There is no privacy in the United States (as you know, the NSA can listen to you using your cell phone while it is off). But the technology to listen to everyone is hardly necessary to create a terror state, and I'm not saying the United States has become even remotely comparable to the Soviet Union under Stalin, or at all comparable to the dystopian novels mentioned in this posting. That would be a prepostrous comparison. On the other hand, the United States has truly horrific nightmares in other countries, such as Guatemala and El Salvador (two of over a dozen such examples), where dissidents or just being the wrong person in the wrong place resulted in unspeakable torture and hacking off of limbs before one's corpse was found on a garbage heap.
Although domestic conditions in the U.S. are not at all comparable to the Soviet Union under Stalin, I see the possibility of things turning in that direction. I'm very fearful when an increasingly large segment of the public advocates for a postmodernist, totalitarian agenda. Humans can be so savage toward each other that it defies belief. Our species will not last, of course. We will destroy ourselves, or die out for other reasons.
Sorry this is so disjointed and for any typos. Time to go to sleep.
He codified it with uncanny accuracy and insight; he wasn't merely a scribe. But, people are thick. Or, as Huxley said, we'd fall because people don't read at all. I watched CNN for the first time in years for its war coverage. Ten minutes in, Jim Acosta used the phenomenon of Russians telling sons and daughters in Ukraine that Russia was not bombing Ukraine-- that this was Western propaganda, to drive home the message that "that's what happens with state-run media." Of course it is, and Acosta himself contributed mightily to the problem. While Goldstein didn't really exist, Orwell did advise that if we keep what makes us human, we defeat them, it. Caring about and wanting to stop the destruction visited on Ukrainians keeps us human. The implication that we shouldn't care, or care too much?? because of not forgetting makes us less so. The U S. never invaded Canada or Mexico.
Regarding Canada, I had ancestors in the War of 1812, so I know that too. How shall I phrase this: modern warfare- tanks, missiles, that sort of thing. Someone was always taking something, even before we got here. We were just more efficient and deadly. With humans and wildlife.
initially, a sideways response: I spent a number of years as a full time volunteer lobbyist in a liberal state in the west. Unlike most people i read every proposed law, there were hundreds each year. Few were necessary, nearly all were proposed by a special interest group wanting something for their group, money, or legal recognition, or restrictions on behavior or speech or economic activity for other groups and individuals for 'safety" (usually) reasons. After awhile i looked around the country and realized that in every state, each year, several hundred to several thousands bills were being introduced and each one that passed added to the already unbearable load of restrictive laws that affected people in that state.
I came to the conclusion that the ability to legislate should be rarely used and only for very necessary laws. The truth is that nearly every law that is passed disenfranchises someone else in some fashion. (I don't want to talk about what many people would consider necessary law here, murder, for example, not the point.) Merely as one example, laws against personal use and ownership of marijuana. (There are actually hundreds of examples, all relevant.) Because every time a law is passed someone is disenfranchised and that those who are disenfranchised are exquisitely aware that the disenfranchisement is not a matter of public safety but of hidden agendas, they lose respect for law. More crucially, they slowly become aware that to engage in moral behavior MEANS breaking the law and, conversely, to remain a law abiding citizen means becoming immoral. In my frame, being a moral person has little to do with religion (so don't go there) but with acting in accordance with the demands of my character, with being an honorable person, with standing up for certain truths which i have decided over long contemplation that are central to an honorable life. Matt Taibbi reflects most of those truths and the behaviors that come from them in his columns, which is why i subscribe.
The situation I describe above, the separation between moral behavior and legal behavior is becoming more extreme by the day in my country, the US. It is becoming more extreme in many places. It can be seen as well in many meritocratic groups, organizations, and institutions (the CDC for instance, the banking industry, the supreme court, pharmaceutical research, the legacy media, and so on). To remain moral in the sense i am speaking of it here means, as many of us liberals on the left have found, that, slowly, over time, we become aware that we no longer belong among the left and we certainly don't belong among the right.
I have watched in shock and disbelief as liberal friends of decades have ignored as not an issue or supported book burnings (my own work and that of J.K. Rowling for instance), speech prohibitions, imprisonment for life without trial, the invasion of Iraq, the abandonment of the right to bodily autonomy, the abandonment of biological facts and identity (but only when it comes to woman, there are no "people who produce sperm" only "people who menstruate"), even restrictions on art, and so much more including the necessity to actually think, to contemplate the meaning of things, including where their ideas are coming from and the motivations for their actions. And these are people who marched with martin luther king, jr, who served in the peace corps, who went to jail for protesting the vietnam war, who fought for free speech at berkeley in the 60s and 70s. They are the ones i sat up late at night with, drinking or smoking dope, and wondered by so many germans went along with hitler, who said, well, we would not have.
And so, shock and disbelief. It seems to no longer matter what side of the political spectrum one is on, it's crazy everywhere.
I used to hope that i would live long enough to see the next great social upheaval, like the 60s/70s or the 20s/30s. My fantasy of course was that it would be the left that it was oriented around, from which it came. It isn't nor is it from the right. There is some third position that is forming, in difficulty and pain and conflict. Some call it heterodox, whatever it is called it does exist, tiny though it is. and it is growing.
To remain moral now means not only engaging in illegal behavior but also means breaking co-dependent and identity bonds with groups which themselves once reflected back to me self-identity. To remain moral means stepping outside existing forms and systems almost entirely. And it necessitates, as difficult as that is, speaking out.
I think there are a great many people who understand that Matt is talking about here. Most of them have not yet found their voice, they are still struggling with the cognitive dissonance coming from the abandonment of what were long cultural norms by their communities, whatever they might be. The reason why taibbi and greenwald and Freddie deboer and FIRE are important (as only a few examples) is that they are finding the language that encapsulates our distress and as well marks the territory of that third space that is coming into being.
it is a lonely time, but an important one to keep the faith as it were. for this is only the beginning of how bad it is likely to become. thank you matt. as always.
Texas is one of the few states that allows its legislature to meet only every two years and then only for 120 days. Additional legislative rules squeeze the calendar even more. The theory has always been "The less they meet, the less bad laws they can pass." In truth, it has worked to a degree. Thousands of proposed laws each session fail to advance, good and bad. Initiatives seldom can arise and be blessed with legislative action in just one or two sessions. On the other hand, there is always a rush to pass bad laws, especially those that are initiated by special interests, and more especially those with buckets of appreciation. Restricted sessions have worked overall for the state. Less burdensome restrictions, taxes, and retained freedoms are real. Still, there are plenty of Texans ready to amend our Constitution to only allow the legislature to meet for two days, every 120 years.
as someone who was arrested more than once in TX for walking with long hair in the 60s, who knows in detail more than one innocent person executed there, who knows of people imprisoned for decades for possession of a few marijuana seeds, who knows in some depth the current laws being passed there and some which are certain to pass, i consider TX to be a corrupt state whether or not it meets every two years. hardly an example to hold up to the world, esp in light of the rationale behind my post. In fact, the place I learned to hate and forever stand against the abuse of police power was TX, the place i first understood the difference between moral behavior and legal behavior was TX. Nothing since has changed my opinion of the place, it has only become more pronounced. The only state i think more corrupt is LA. a real cesspit of it.
As you acknowledge, your experiences were formative. Texas in the '60's was not the place to be for long-haired Hippies, which is why Janis Joplin and others headed west to a more liberal state. As a long-haired '70's Hippie, I learned many of the same lessons between what was legal and what was moral. I even spent a decade in a western liberal state and learned enough lessons that I have no compunctions to return, from being arrested and jailed for wearing a t-shirt, to seeing the corruption that is so easily purchased and guised in environmental/virtue-signaling/racial or other clothing. Better we take the lessons learned and apply them, something I’ve felt too often too many fail to do, to learn and to develop principles. I agree with your lessons learned and the principles you’ve developed. There are lessons to be learned everywhere. I hope you are in the State of peace that best matches your lessons.
I grew up in Texas, in the sixties. I did protest the Viet Nam war, but for the most part San Antonio seemed unpolitical. However, the Texas of the 1960's and 1970's and 1980's is not the same as the mess it is today. Don't forget about Willie and Waylon and the boys, Jerry Jeff, Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Charlie Wilson, the Texas Observer, Jim Hightower, and on and on. Even though Janis is from Texas, I don't think of her as a "Texan" as much as I do others. Texas, at that time, seemed to have the best and the worst, and the worst have predominated, I hope temporarily. I haven't lived in Texas for a long time, but I do remember the good parts fondly. The current Texas just breaks my heart.
I moved to Texas four years ago. Our first “same as it ever was” was when the local police office was being purged because of corruption. Coming from Maryland, I just laughed and said didn’t we leave this shit show?
"Brave new world" too. "The road to Wigan Pier" by George Orwell is well worth a read too; he was Anti totalitarian and Anti capitalist and had a plan how to bring the working classes together which would be as presient today as then.
When YouTube and Twitter started blocking right-wing (and not so right-wing) content in 2020, didn't it occur to anyone that they come after other content they disagreed with, even from the left?
I remember the day Alex Jones was simultaneously deplatformed by multiple tech titans. I spoke with my brother that day and he was happy about it and said that Alex Jones deserved it. I said I don't support or oppose Jones. He may have said things that you or I don't think were right or nice, but don't you SEE what just happened. His takedown was COORDINATED! If we just accept this he will be just the first domino to fall. Well, that's exactly what happened.This slide into totalitarianism really has revealed peoples true colors.
As long as I can remember, libertarians have been on the fringe of political discourse, focusing on issues nobody seems to care about. In the 1970s they were talking about legalizing gay marriage. In the 1980s instead of “Just Saying No”, they demanded we end the drug war. In 2005 when most of the country was still seeing red from 9/11, libertarians were talking about ending the wars and the dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act. They could often be seen defending ‘scoundrels’, like when Alex Jones was kicked out of polite society, muttering about how it wouldn’t stop there.
But time is a funny thing, and politics are fluid - they’re based on the values of the people at any particular moment. These ‘fringe’ positions of yesterday are today’s mainstream thoughts. The libertarian arguments didn’t change, the politics of the people changed and became more libertarian. In this way, libertarians are often on the fringe because the mainstream hasn’t yet found their way to the libertarian position.
After all, when things are going well, who has time to sit around talking about the dangers of growing government? Why should we spend time thinking about monetary policy? We’ve got real shit to worry about. Just trust that the government is looking out for you.
Cornell West is an inspiration. This dyed-in-the-wool, Darwin-thumping atheist would dress up and go to church regularly if he were giving the sermons.
Thank you for your moral clarity and dedication to the truth. You are apparently the only one on this list that has noticed this crucial part of history (or who thinks it has relevance). West is more than a hack. He is an ideologue, like all the other socialists, who use different criteria for their allies than they do for dissenters. Their followers refuse to notice this. They think history started yesterday. Ignore the evil deeds of those you support and magnify and distort those of your enemy. So it is now with Ukraine and apparently on this list too.
Which one do you consider Russia more guilty of, and which one the U.S.? Re "mass slaughter of civilians", check out Operation Condor, which Matt mentions. Enforcing the Monroe Doctrine has been far from bloodless.
I have found you can get through to many people who have become immersed in doublethink. The trick is have a good memory, command of the facts, and apply gentle but constant pressure. You need to be able to make people remember what people said in the past, the reasons they gave for saying it, and be able to compare that with what they are saying now. The good news is I find this has started to become easier than ever. The shameless government and media lying has got to the point where even disengaged and politically apathetic Americans are skeptical about what they see or hear. What you need to do is remind them of why they were skeptical when their skepticism starts to fade and break down the emotional manipulation they are undergoing. The Iraq War and Covid-19 are very effective in this regard. Things may seem worse than ever (and they might be), but we also have an opportunity we cannot miss.
Since 2020, the Dems have been ridiculing anyone who publicly discusses or asks questions inferring the presidential election was not on the up and up. Why it was the safest election ever, they exclaim. Time even had a cover story up immediately after the election telling us all everything done to insure the most secure election ever.
These were the same people who had a complete meltdown when Trump won the presidency by winning the electoral college. Immediately the caterwauling began that the Russians stole the election for Trump. The Dems also tried to get states’ electors to change their vote based on the fact Clinton won the popular vote. They know that is not how the presidential election works, but that didn’t stop them from trying to overturn the results.
Interesting how this fell down the memory hole after the 2020 election.
I like your last sentence stating that Dems are idiots! Thank you!
In fact Hillary Clinton claimed she won in 2016 for three years, blaming the Russians for getting votes her President Trump.
And there is ample evidence of voter fraud in 2020. The latest data from Wisconsin show that the 91 nursing homes checked each had at least 95% voter turnout, and many 100%, when relatives of many residents testified that their parent or aunt or uncle was incapable of voting, had not voted in more than 10 years, and could not even recognize their own children, et al.
We know that there was massive fraud in Fulton County, Georgia. The person in charge of the vote collecting and tallying stated publicly (for example, on CBS News) that the system would shut down at 1030pm on election day, and reopen the following morning. Surveillance cameras show people coming in at 1130pm, pulling boxes from under tables and opening them and putting the ballots through the vote counting machines.
In Detroit, Republican poll watchers were not allowed in the vote tallying rooms, which the law says they must be allowed to do.
Etc., etc., etc.
And the biggest question is "How did Biden, who everyone agrees was an awful candidate (as was his running mate, Harris), who was not allowed out of his home for most of the campaign, win 81 million votes?"
Another thing Democrats and co. did in 2016: poison U.S.-Russia relations via the Russiagate absurdities, making de-escalatory diplomacy politically impossible in the years following, resulting in the present war in Ukraine (it might have been averted with the slightest of concessions!), which might yet go nuclear owing to the continued political impossibility to undertake the slightest diplomacy, all resulting from those reckless actions post-2016. Frankly I wish they would have just tried to overturn the election.
The Dems also did not just express dissatisfaction with the Electoral College. They were contacting electors asking them to change votes to Clinton in states won by Trump:
Interesting that Politico says it was Sanders supporters behind the effort; as I recall it came from Clinton supporters also.
Nonetheless, I would consider their efforts an attempt to overturn the results.
I will grant they were more civilized about it. No one scaling the walls of the Capitol, breaking windows, breaking into offices and pooping on desks. And no Q CT at that point so no Q shaman.
Unfortunately I disagree. People are so invested in their group think that any heresy is immediately tuned out. Once you challenge someone core beliefs their human reaction to not hear it is too great. Even though I am a devout believer I still understand the contradiction of belief, but most people can not do that. Our thought tribalism is so ingrained now in our collective psyche that to waver from the truth causes mental shit down.
I don’t agree with cutting off news from either side. If we are not able to talk to each other through news we will cause more lasting harm. Unfortunately we may have already crossed that Rubicon and there is not going back
I admire your optimism Matt, but respectfully disagree. The telescreen, running on fear, lack of meaning & isolation are insanely potent tools for mass control. Obviously I’m plagiarizing Mathias Desmet—whom I greatly admire. He shares your belief, that we can move the gulled, but I’m just stupefied by the extent of hypnosis of otherwise intelligent people who should know better.
It helps to start with a contentious issue that isn’t the matter at hand. Believe it or not International Women’s Day has sparked some conversations about how the truth is often the exact opposite of what we’re told.
Do you remember the movie War Games? Matthew Broderick, 1980s? Before the AI that was about to launch WWIII could learn that it was impossible to win a nuclear war, first it had to learn that unwinnable games existed. So they taught it Tic Tac Toe. Find each person’s Tic Tac Toe and you’re halfway there.
I agree. It's tough though. I have been doing this for years. You have to go in tiny baby steps otherwise they will shoot the messenger (usually with words, sometimes physical violoence).
It’s not understatement to say I despise my government and it despises me. It seeks to control me through a hatred and fear of the other, but with each successive moral panic, I only loathe the creators of the crisis more.
I can only hope that they don’t stumble their way into Armageddon while trying to manipulate us into submission.
I would say that I despise what they do, and what they do in our name. If we have hateful feelings in our own hearts, and I know it is hard not to in these days, we will stoop to the same misdeed they are doing if we were to be the ones in power. I love these people the way I love a child gone astray. I do not like their actions, but these are the actions of an immature humanity that is still trying to make adult life like the schoolyard. This is largely a result of the educational systems foisted on humanity for the past century or so. We no longer no how to think, and this includes the so-called experts. They are children playing King of the Hill.
I think he was prescient in regards to the development of a culture of children who wish to be led by a parent in the form of government. We believe that our elections matter, but the reality is that we have a nomenklatura who set an Overton Window and harshly punish any politician who steps outside of it. The purpose of the modern politician is to provide a fiction that the people get a say in their rule.
All of government distracts us with collective outrage and frivolous pleasures. We exist somewhere between Orwell and Huxley, oscillating between our two minutes of hate and a soma-induced stupor, while they do what they will without any accountability. How else can you explain the massive disconnect between the incredible, frothing rage over Ukraine and the nonplussed reaction to our own actions in Yemen, which by any account are far more bloody and inhumane?
Thank you for making it clear that the lives of some are more expendable than others by virtue of where they live or their utility to our national "interests."
Goddammit this is important, will you please unpaywall it?! You will get many more subscribers from doing so than from a few of us screaming SUBSCRIBE TO TABBI!!! and posting snippets and screenshots.
"please unpaywall it! You will get many more subscribers from doing so"
Not sure this is true. As personal evidence, the most recent Substack I subscribed to (The Upheaval by N.S. Lyons, highly recommended), I did so because I finished the teaser paragraphs and thought, "Damnit, I _have_ to read the rest of this!" No idea how many teaser paragraphs Taibbi uses, but I'll bet it's the optimal number.
With that said, I do want an open link I can text to certain family/friends and just say, "Please read this."
One of the most salient points in this article is that our current collective state of mind exposes the spiritual rot of what used to be called "Christian Civilization." For those who have been paying attention, the hypocrisy of our current position on the Russian "incursion" into the Ukraine is very apparent. I never thought the day would come when I agreed with Cornel West, but I admit that one of my first thoughts when Russia invaded was, "they saw what we did inn a Iraq and thought, 'why can't we make a pre-emptive strike?'" We need to take a long look in the mirror. The U.S.A. is in grave need of massive reform and spiritual reawakening. A house-cleaning is in order. The war in the Ukraine is tragic and dangerous, but what's happening in the west is even more frightening, and its leading us into a vary dark place. We're in a perilous moment.
Absolutely agree with your general point, SoCalGuy. I've come to the general conclusion, a majority in US feel when "we" do the same 'bad' thing as other countries, its not so bad. However, when OTHER countries do the same 'bad' thing as us, it is much worse. Getting the message that "a bad thing is a bad thing" into majority of public's consciousness perhaps no longer possible?
I think we've justified a lot of things by thinking, "They're doing it for US.. our safety, our material gain, our freedom.." but now many of us are feeling a creeping apprehension.. that perhaps the CIA, FBI, the entire government security apparatus and our leadership have been corrupted to the point where they're not serving US.. they're serving themselves, and their globalist clients. Now we're realizing that "bad things" are always bad things, and we need a fresh look at the things that are done in our name. If it's not too late.
It was interesting that, unlike what happened in the buildup to Iraq, no one even bothered to assess the Ukraine situation in light of the Just War doctrine. Because we might not like the answer.
It's because George W. referred to the U.N. as "irrelevant" before deciding to go ahead and initiate an illegal invasion of U.S. military force upon a sovereign nation despite the fact that we had not been attacked by that nation, nor had we been granted legal permission within the U.N. security counsel to launch such an invasion Diplomatically, this comment and resulting action set us back decades. We may all, in fact, end up paying the ultimate price for it--sooner than we may think.
The problem is that narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths (who lead our nations) cannot see the comparison because they have no empathy or care for the actual people. Nothing will make them see, other than to learn to play the "game" in a way the are not expecting. There was a far better way for Putin to "win" but he failed to see and fell into the trap set for him. Again, I think they are all playing this to engineer more fear and the need to restrict our movements and speech and freedoms.
Most of the footage I've seen from both "sides'" looks totally fake in so many ways. No doubt that people are suffering, but I don't think we are seeing reality, but actors and fancy things that we can do do with digital editing. This leads us to the need to state that a digital future is not an honest future.
No amount of digital verification will stop the actual elite criminals. They always get around it - but it will harm us. What is digital can certainly be faked, perhaps more than physical evidence. The 4th Industrial Revolution, by making a totally digital world thus becomes able to disprove any past history other than what they want us to know. They are literally erasing our humanity and this is a crime against humanity. Digital has its uses and we should welcome such things, but never, never must it rule us - for it knows only strict justice and lacks human or Godly mercy. It is a half image of reality...something some religions call "the devil."
Once again at the end of days the trees of Eden are before us. The Tree of Knowledge is all that we have done in history and the knowledge of who is at the top and will rule in such a world...This Tree leads to the WEF which eventually leads to total collapse because it is still founded on a wrong principal. It lacks the knowledge of rhythm of life cycles.
There is another tree called the Tree of Life, that we can embrace (it is a new way of learning to see beyond either/or binaries) that will teach us how to use the accumulated knowledge of our civilized world in ways that will benefit all rather than the self-proclaimed few. Religion has long attempted to explain this Tree of Life, but few can listen before taking back to the ways of the powerful elites...and thus can never overcome.
Because of the "net" people can now clearly see the machinations of tyrannical totalitarian finance and the institutions that serve it. Their implementation of a worldwide psychological operation to convince us that we are powerless is in our faces. We're not.
It's a war on Consciousness. The evolutionary potential of Citizen powered change toward the application of freedom based democratic principals afforded by the "net" stands in direct opposition to the greed driven actions of totalitarian finance. It's that simple. The monsters are being driven out of the shadows and into the light. That puts us all in peril.
After the U.S. announced sanctions on Russia, we've watched as most powerful companies deployed their own sanctions packages. From restaurants to tech companies, they've cut off their businesses from the Russian people.
I'm a bit unnerved that the corporate world was so effective at this at a time when no one feels the need to question whether they're right to do so. I fear that lessons are being learned right now that will soon be turned on dissenters at home in the US.
This is what they are doing - flexing their power to let us know that we are helpless before them. The key is to stop relying solely on digital. Digital is a tool, let it not become our prison.
I love this post, Matt. Let’s remember the Bay of Pigs. How horrified were we to find Russian weapons near our border in Cuba? If Ukraine joins NATO, we can put our weapons right next to Russia’s border. Putin is justified in not ever wanting that to happen. Biden did not even consider Russia’s defensive position in this and he did not negotiate in good faith. Speaking of the spooks, when Kennedy was trying to get leverage against Kruschev, he told his military spooks that he would threaten to put missles in Turkey. After an awkward silence the spooks said “We already have them there.” We have never honored Russia’s preference for spheres of influence. Picking off satellite countries and adding them into NATO has perhaps not been so wise if it is peace we are seeking.
Big Brother is here, you subtly pointed that out by saying spies are popular again. Some of us haven't forgotten that we cant do anything online without the NSA reading or watching, or say certain opinions without being considered a domestic terrorist. We haven't fallen for the warmongering bullshit, and won't fight until the fight is at home.
1984 indeed. Some people might laugh at this, but I really hope that free-speech-oriented companies like Rumble, Gab, Substack, Gettr, and even Truth Social succeed -- as much for people on the left *like me* as for people on the right.
“The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.”
― George Orwell, The Lost Orwell: Being a Supplement to The Complete Works of George Orwell
Case in point, Robby Soave (editor at Reason magazine, an ostensibly libertarian magazine), if you've ever heard of him. But that's why it doesn't matter what we label ourselves. I don't know many liberal "liberals" anymore either.
Please allow me to introduce myself . . .
I'm a classic liberal, favoring social liberalism and financial conservatism. The financial conservatism is necessary, because without it we cannot afford the luxury of social liberalism otherwise.
Soave is a dolt. He says the most inane things on The Hill. He's an opportunist, nothing more, nothing less. He's got nothin' on Benny Hinn.
Or Benny Hill.
I listen to Robby on Rising. I haven't heard him take any grossly authoritarian positions. Do you mean Reason itself is taking such positions and Robby is at least in part responsible due to his position?
He is only libertarian when it comes to government, which would work just fine if we didn't have such huge corporations that government doesn't have to be authoritarian. They just have the corporations do it for them. Someone who doesn't recognize the danger of fascism, which is government and corporations working together to control a population, is not a libertarian. Robby Soave does not recognize that.
Robby Soave is libertarian when it comes to the government, but when it comes to businesses he thinks they can do whatever they like, never mind that our corporations are so big and so entangled with the government that the government doesn't need to be authoritarian to turn this country into a dystopia. They just have to tell the businesses to do that (think vaccine mandates, censorship--all that's just fine with Soave as long as corporations are making the demands). That's my problem with Robby Soave.
I'm thinkin' you should take a hard look at what you can expect to happen if you start letting some ill-defined "common good" trump any individuals' personal freedom. It's more like a base jump with no bungee cord than a "slippery slope".
Besides, the libertarians at Reason have, taking a cue from the wokeians, re-defined libertarianism to suit themselves. They've gotten it down to one unquestionable and invariable principle: INFINITE IMMIGRATION! Open borders, and any attempt to ensure that immigration is beneficial to the country is as evil as asking someone to have a valid ID to vote.
It's really quite remarkable..
No, those are not libertarians.
The libertarian ideology views individual freedom as the height of the common good. That personal freedom necessarily extends to women, gay people etc. If it doesn't, you are not libertarian, full stop.
I'm literally listening to him right now complain about the authoritarian strain in the Republican party that is expressing itself via the anti-CRT laws for what that is worth.
You may disagree with the libertarian philosophy of course, but the fact that you disagree doesn't make them all opportunistic, despicable hypocrites.
No, there are people in ALL parties and persuasions who are now authoritarian and that's why political lines are being redrawn. But libertarians are no guiltier than liberals. Less, actually. But there are people in all parties, elites, and globalists that believe in noble lies, in their ability and the necessity to control narratives and thus humans. With short or no memories.
What if they're doing it *for our own good*?
Um yes, that's the elitist garbage they are getting away with, and all parties seem to be snowed by this to some degree.
I hope it too but it’s unlikely. Pressure will be placed to shut down their servers. Really the only hope is someone will invent a technology truly impossible to control, but that’s a slender reed to hang hope on.
Tech will never solve this problem. For every leap in cryptology there will be a bound in hacking. No, the only real answer is to create an expectation of free speech. It needs to be ground into each and every person that the right for others to speak their piece is what ensures my right to speak. And what we should shame anyone who feels differently.
And this needs to start at the most basic levels. Transparency in local gov't. Force anyone who feels a need or has the ability to shame you for asking questions and speaking, the two basic building blocks of a free and civil society, to feel the shame of the public square.
When people feel that they need to silence other people for having a different opinion, we, all of us no matter the political stripe, need to come to their defense. And, yes, this applies equally to BLM as to MAGA.
The distinction being that the MAGA movement has never tried to shut down anyone's freedom of expression, while BLM and the rest of the radicalized Left are incessantly working to violate the First Amendment rights of anyone who dares express any "unapproved" words or ideas. They screech "silence is violence!" in your face while demanding that others be silenced. Then proceed to label everyone white supremacists.
The sin of MAGA is that it exists at all.
That distinction is a matter of power differential, not moral differential. Remember that it used to be the Republicans, the “moral majority” that represents the historical “great America” to which MAGA refers, who posed the greatest threat to free speech. They’re the ones who wanted to ban rap and video games. The MAGA advocacy for civil liberties is every bit as shallow and self-serving as Dem advocacy for such causes was during the Bush years. Both sides use civil liberties as a tool when they’re on the defensive, only to sing a very different tune once they’ve obtained the upper hand. Don’t trust any of these assholes.
What you are referring to was an unholy alliance of the small government libertarian wing (what used to be called Goldwater Republicans) and the Bible thumpers. This partnership, often referred to as the "Reagan Coalition", pretty much defined the late 20th Century GOP platform. Neither side shared much common ground but they needed one another to counter the big government, endless handout juggernaut of the ruinous Democrat party.
Bush II marked the end of this fading alliance. The hill which the holy roller club chose to die upon was the same sex marriage battle. While eking out a few early victories such as CA's PropH8, they lost once and for all at SCOTUS and pretty much haven't been heard from since. None of their dire predictions of the End Times ever came to pass.
Recall the 2016 GOP primary where all of the 37+ candidates were tripping over one another in lock step professing their undying commitment to overturning marriage. All but one that is, and he went on to claim the nomination and the throne and launched the MAGA movement with a proclamation that "Marriage is settled law". While heresy for a Republican, recall that Black Jesus was elected on a platform of "One Man, One Woman" then proceeded to regress race relations by a half century in his first term alone.
The script has been flipped ever since.
The only demand of MAGA is love of one's country and a desire for its needs prioritized over the needs of other nations. Just like other nations prioritize their needs above ours. And that includes secured and defined borders.
p.s. I seem to recall the jihad to censor music and video games in the 80's being driven by the wife of a future Democrat Vice President and eco-warrior. What Frank Zappa referred to as "A bunch of bored Washington housewives".
I disagree. The Falwell right still lives and breathes. They just decided that money was more powerful than god!
The Falwell right was brilliant. They realized that very few Americans vote in the non-national election cycles (when School boards and local governments are put on the ballot), and mobilized the Liberty University grads to move to new locations and run. They took over the places where things actually happen in this country and nobody truly cares.
Everything else is just theatre. Most of it egged on and escalated by government actors.
You practically write the definition of fascism in respect to MAGA: "The only demand of MAGA is love of one's country and a desire for its needs prioritized over the needs of other nations. Just like other nations prioritize their needs above ours. And that includes secured and defined borders."
Once I read Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals I gained insight into what’s happening. That of course led me to Derek Bell and Kimberly Crenshaw and papers on CRT from Harvard Law Review in late 90s early aughts. I RE-read Marx and Engels. I also went back to The Constitution and The Federalist Papers.
Among other things that’s when I accepted the fact that what had happened to me and so many others is not a conspiracy theory it’s that people blindly accepted what seemed to be a well-meaning message I mean who isn’t for everyone getting along right? And then they were committed to the narrative and the more the media called out “racist” and “white privilege” and pols were saying violence is okay the more committed they became and they were validated. There’s no way they could back out even if they wanted to.
When riots went on for months and lies and gaslighting became the norm I realized this was not like 1968 or LA or even Occupy.
I also became convinced at that point that even if Biden’s election was free and fair he is not in control.
His aging and/or stupidity just made it easier for him to fit the suit and the men and women behind the curtain are in charge. It all just seems like a bad dream or Alice In Wonderland.
It is important to read the interpretations of social theory, of James Madison and the Federalist Papers, along with many sociology papers. What you never read from these writers however are bald assertions without explication. However, somewhere along the line, you have learned and imitated the outlandish practice of making bald assertions without evidence or reasoning. For example, your remarks about Biden, about rioting, about "behind the curtain" are obscure and lack detail and sense - you are unhistorical and inaccurate. Are you talking about the communist regime in Russia or the Wizard of O? Comments like yours are not helpful and simply regurgitate crap through your party machine.
Im not sure what you’re trying to prove but “unhistorical” is completely incorrect as I AM part of history.
You stated my failure to provide supporting evidence of my thoughts and opinions while You provided no qualified counter-argument Only lots of words, several of which are used incorrectly.
I’m not spending any additional time on this when you can go and actually do some work to “fact check” my original IDEAS, OPINIONS and POSITS
FACT: this President has consistently made accusations and threats alienating large numbers of American citizens. These are just 2 examples.
https://www.politico.com/news/2021/09/10/biden-pandemic-vaccination-effort-511157
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-2022-pitch-target-trump-acolytes-woo-swing-voters-2022-01-09/
if more than 30% of the population disapproves of your performance even when you have a media machine excusing, rationalizing or ignoring bad policy you’re not doing well. And he doesn’t even have angry tweets.
“Klain is responsible for shaping the president’s domestic agenda...”
https://www.mediaite.com/politics/biden-chief-of-staff-klain-calls-out-nyt-for-hypocrisy-after-editorial-pushes-for-a-moderate-agenda/
And the NYT of all outlets was called “red-pilled” when they ran an op-Ed in which the Biden (Klain) domestic agenda (BBB plan) was too far left.
Susan rice:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/12/15/failing-upwards-biden-picks-susan-rice-to-lead-domestic-policy-after-years-of-foreign-policy-disasters/
It might not be too big of a stretch to compare Benghazi to Afghanistan (the last thing the Biden administration wants to hear)
https://www.worldtribune.com/why-afghan-catastrophe-seemed-familiar-obamas-benghazi-team-is-back/
Why do you think Rice (a foreign policy EXPERT with zero domestic policy experience) was passed over for VP in favor of Cackling Kamala?
Maybe its better for her to be out of sight pulling levers w The Amazing Bewildered Blinken at the podium
What’s in her wallet?
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/susan-rice-vice-president-clients_n_5f2c2319c5b64d7a55f01b47
Were 2020 riots not validated by those in power? And anyone who spoke out against them was immediately labeled a racist or Trump supporter.
https://independentcitizen.com/maxine-waters-incites-violence/
Even the WaPo had to spin this one
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/03/kamala-harris-tweeted-support-bail-fund-money-didnt-just-assist-protestors/
did I say Biden was not elected? My statement was a counter to the “election was rigged” idea. I don’t know whether it was or not. Do you? Can you prove it either way?
I’m not sure what party you think I belong to but let me help you. NONE. Former Occupy participant, Iraq war protestor, Salon reader, MSNBC watcher.
NOW: observer of insanity, libertarian-leaning independent
Your reply has no useful point. If you’re actually interested in sharing ideas here that would be great. Or you can continue to scroll through posts and make random pointless comments.
Good day.
How is calling for the banning of books that address basic American historical facts not shutting down freedom of expression?
your right to dissent hasn't been silenced, so what are you talking about?
He’s talking about the “demand that others be silenced” by labeling “everyone white supremacists.” It was right there in his comment.
All this thread reminds me of one of my favorite Orwell quotes: "IF LIBERTY MEANS ANYTHING AT ALL, IT MEANS HAVING THE RIGHT TO TELL SOMEONE SOMETHING THEY DO NOT WANT TO HEAR"
Good point - and just look at how far school boards, particularly in Virginia last year have been willing to overstep
Another Good point, Scott. We're moving further away from transparency than ever. I've been trying to get copies of FFX Co. School Board's annual review of our Superintendent (under my VA FOIA rights) for years now. Denied every time; on the grounds that a seeing how my School Board views the annual performance of it's highest paid executive (almost $1/2M) is "personal" information.
It's one thing to address the outrageous salaries of administrators, a reason why property taxes are out of control, and another thing entirely to complain about the social studies curriculum as if historical facts should not be taught! And, then, to organize a political campaign on false stories about curricula is another lie from the Republican machine!
Can you explain the alleged false political campaign being organized by the Republican machine in public schools? I find the premise laughable.
To my knowledge, all school board members in my County are aligned with the Democratic progressive political platform. As an example, please note that Fairfax (FFX) Co. tax payers were obligated to pay Author Ibram Kendi $20,000.00 to give a 45 minute video virtual presentation on Aug. 6th, 2020 to FFX Co. Public School officials titled "Cultivating an Anti-racist School Community". This presentation was officially sponsored by the FFX Co. School Board. Add to that mix the fact that there is only 1 District supervisor in FFX Co. that is Republican with the remaining 9 members being registered Democrats--- and your premise appears to crumble.
Saul is that you?
So it sounds like some are referring to CRT curriculum? I'm sure everyone realizes that the word "history" is not part of CRT.
Tech has solved lots of problems at least temporarily until it is superseded by other tech. Perhaps that is the best we can hope. Freedom of speech grew out of the movable-type press, which made broader dissemination of more ideas faster and easier until very, very recently. Democracies arose when the weaponry available to citizens was roughly equal to the weaponry available to the state. Workers were strongest when tech was advanced enough to make them immensely valuable to capital but advanced enough to make them irrelevant. Dialup made centralized control of the internet impossible until it was replaced by broadband. And on and on.
Either someone invents an end run around big tech, and pro to, or the world is screwed.
"Dialup made centralized control of the internet impossible until it was replaced by broadband"
Not quite sure I follow that one.
"Either someone invents an end run around big tech, and pro to, or the world is screwed."
Perhaps. But it's worth recalling that big tech had a very different culture in the recent past - or is that another fact we're all collectively memory holing so we have convenient targets to hate? Cultures can change with time. I'm not old but in my life I've seen:
* Twitter go from the "free speech wing of the free speech party" to what it is today.
* Microsoft go from being the Evil Empire to a rehabilitated, productive and (mostly) respected member of the software community. Certainly the most recent generation of programmers would think you're a bit weird if you engaged in a 90s style Microsoft-as-the-great-satan rant.
Yet, they are the same organizations, with a great number of people who were there in both phases. Cultures can change, and quite fast too.
A lot of what's going on here are symptoms of bigger problems that aren't tech specific - wokeism is a universal plague, it's not something specific to Silicon Valley. The need to constantly virtue signal speaks to a deep seated uneasyness with the world, an uncertainty about what a good person is and how you become one. In the past religion fulfilled this role, and religion of course was constantly trying to cancel heretics, control language, and gave its adherents lots of formalized ways to virtue signal. A nice friendly turn-the-other-cheek Christian might seem preferable to a woke person *now*, but again cultures change and it wasn't always so.
The ultimate solution to this doesn't lie in cryptography or peer to peer networks, and I say that as a programmer with expertise in both. They might buy time or opportunities, at best. But ultimately this is a meme war, and the mightiest weapons are ideas. Wokeism is ascendant at the moment because it's a set of ideas that meet needs people have, even if maybe they can't explain why or don't want to explain why. The solution is not to try and run from people with those ideas but to fight for their minds, with better ideas.
This.
Really well said.
we need telepathy
The Men Who Stare at Goats ;)
or go dox and f*kc up all the woke techholes. old school style. gasoline and pitchforks.
Go look up a hacker named Gummo. He's done some "interesting" work.
Agree, Swagman. But, knowing what should 'be' and making it actually 'be' is hard. I think most of the comments to Matt's article are lamenting that what you suggest is NOT happening. Most of the comments don't sound (to me) all that optimistic that it will be happening anytime soon.
It's absolutely astonishing how many liberals right now simply do not understand how crucial it is that we live by the "I may hate every word you say, but I'll fight to the death for you right to say it" thing--because right NOW, their policies and people are in power. Glenn Greenwald talks about this all the time -- they can't see the principal --ends justify means.
It's probably going to be a distributed technology like IPFS, or something hard to track like TOR hidden services. Problem is, non-technical people can't easily get to those.
The tech impossible to control is the hand-written letter. Perhaps made fool proof if hand delivered.
OR...a super-massive Coronal Mass Ejection Event that wipes out the comm satellites. We're due for one as large or larger than the 1859 Carrington Event.
There will be some minor side-effects, like a shortage of cute pics of cats and grandchildren, and the collapse of civilization, but hey: No Twitter Blue Checks! Nothing worthwhile is free.
Happened in "Dark Angel"!
LOL
Perhaps a derivative of Crypto-Currency systems? I've read Bitcoin, et al, very hard to trace. Piggyback technology of some sort? I agree with Mr. Bob below on TOR. TOR a long way from point-and-click. Intercept News site had extensive article on how to use TOR. Not light reading. For me anyway.
Here's a thought. The National Farmer's Alliance, the highly successful workers' movement of the 1800s that almost created a third party strong enough to challenge the duopoly until it was infiltrated, had more than 1,000 newspapers and periodicals available free or at low cost, and 40,000 traveling lecturers to speak to the populace and educate them on the real causes of their pain. The only way those can be stopped is overt action by government entities. What if going retro is the answer?
I find this side discussion of Crypto illustrative of the fact that money is not real. How we have built a whole world's economy on something that is an illusion is just fascinating.
Bitcoin is rather easy to trace. Some alternatives like Monero aren't.
I believe there are already some experimental programs for storing data on a blockchain in an immutable way. Problem is I don't know how well it will scale. Storing transaction records for Bitcoin is already getting pretty slow. Now consider how much data videos would require. I don't know if there's a way to optimize that that makes sense.
Ugh. And, of course, lurking in the shadows is that 'advertising' and all its associated activities are what actually pay for the infrastructure of Social Media. And, Merchants like to NOT be associated with 'unpopular-ness' these days. Unwinding well funded monopolies always hard.
I read somewhere that it’s only easy to trace if you buy on an exchange. And less so if you buy independently and store in your own wallet. Is there a difference?
Going a little more into educated guess territory here, but... not buying it from an exchange might make it harder to connect to a real name, but it's still fairly easy to connect it to a wallet address. The blockchain is public, and anybody can see who sent coins to who, when, and how much. I'm also not sure how much network information could be gleaned from this (connecting an IP address to a transaction/wallet, and at that point you're pretty much got).
In order to counter this, you need to obfuscate the transaction trail in some way, which is what Monero (and I think Oxen) do.
There are several privacy-centric altcoins that make it very difficult to trace transactions. Monero is one such project, but so is ZCash (https://z.cash/) and MimbleWimble (https://www.mycryptopedia.com/mimblewimble-explained/). They do require some work to understand and use properly, but are viable alternatives for those willing to learn how to use them.
LPT: LIVEPEER for encrypted videos. There might be others that are better.
That's pretty much the way I see it too.
There is no more "left" or "right". There is only authoritarianism and anti-authoritarianism. We have to let go of the old political frames if we're to survive the coming authoritarian onslaughts
We won't survive this.
It depends. If we hold our own government to account - and not eat the daily dog food of American exceptionalism, put pressure on power's grip in the media and find real ways to resist that show the rest of the world that they are not wrong to want a multi-polar world (maybe we have a chance).
However, the counter-argument is that we have treated so many across the world so poorly (see Venezuela as one example), that it would not take very much for the Chinese, the Russians, the Indians, the Vietnamese, or the Iranians to seek revenge in this kind of world and get their decades long pound of flesh they have been wanting --- so we are not only bad actors in this hegemony, but really shitty teachers of democracy/capitalism. One could see this coming around as blowback.
Sorry, but that's "Affluenza" talking. Anyone under 50 has literally no idea how fucked-up the late-Sixties and Seventies were. When you literally can't find a menial job, like stocking or dish-washing, to feed your family, THAT's bad times. When your national industries are turning out new "cars" where parts fall off, THAT's a problem, etc.
I'll be the first to say we've got to deal with the New Fascism, but...we will.
I remember in 2015 or 2016 Hillary Clinton saying that we need to "get rid of" Drudge and Rush Limbaugh. Well, they did, one by buyout and the other of natural causes. They also put an end to uncensored commenting on The Daily Mail and ended it entirely on Yahoo - all before the 2020 election. But truth keeps cropping up, here and on other sites, and the authoritarians are forced to play whack-a-mole. Left and right unite. Keep the faith. Never give up.
I think there are two groups of people on the 'left' nowadays. Those who adhere to traditional leftist principles (less income inequality, universal health care, suspicion of big business, advocacy for free speech, etc.) and those that are reflexively against whatever conservatives might approve of. Unfortunately the latter group, which was precipitated out during the Trump years, predominates these days.
There aren't two groups on the left nowadays. That's your imagination searching for logic where there is none. BTW, what does "predominate" add to your point vs. dominate? Look up the definitions, they are virtually identical. As the late, great George Carlin said: ": Pre-suck my genital situation".
ChesterView is right, and the proof is out there for anyone to see. The latter group they identify, those who are just reflexively opposed to anything from the Republicans, have been at war with the first group ever since Sanders announced his bid in 2016.
There is never proof in opinions.
Are you disputing that there has been internecine conflict on the left between the moderates and the progressives, or are you disputing my (logical, natural) conclusion that there are, in fact, two camps on the left? Because it seems to me that your original comment is mostly just a flimsy excuse to paint the left with a broad brush.
Appears to be typical infighting in same "camp". Happens on both sides of the isle. I don't see that as different camps. Your effort to paint shades of grey as black and white is folly, in my opinion. As for Bernie, he caved to the camp leader(s) twice. By definition (and logical fact), he is not in a separate camp.
BTW, I'm all for new camps outside of Donkeys and Elephants. Personally I think the People would be a lot better off with as many camps as possible. As George Carlin also famously said, "And I can dream, can't I?"
Agreed. But I would classify the latter group as media-led sheep. Unwitting cheerleaders for a neo-lib establishment which is even more morally bankrupt than the neocons.
Gold.
"Now free speech and peace advocacy are universally understood to be stalking horses for fascism."
Modern attitudes toward speech control basically amount to "shooting holes in the *other* end of the boat is fine, because that's where the bad people are".
This is hilarious and well-put!
As what's left of the REAL Left comes together, expect them to be pilloried just as the populist Right is.
We're sleepwalking into a nuclear holocaust.
You think Truth Social is about free speech?
Since we're on the topic of Orwell, how Orwellian is it for Trump (an infamous and shameless liar) to put "Truth" in the name of his product?
President Trump lied a lot less in 4 years than "President" Biden has in one year. In fact Trump was generally correct because he relied on people who actually gave him correct information. His reputation is excellent for asking for and using advice from the right people in his statements. The Central Park Ice Skating Rink is a great example of this, but it is a fact for all of his adult life.
He was correct on almost everything about COVID, from shutting down travel from China in January 2020 (and getting hate from Democrats for that), and reporting that hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were helpful in treating early cases (proven by the fact that African countries where these two are used daily have very low death rates from COVID), to arguing that schools should reopen and people get back to work. The book by Scott Atlas, A Plague on our House, which is the standard reference on the U.S. actions in 2020, reports how President Trump was an excellent listener to actual experts like him, but was stuck with Birx and Fauci, who were poorly informed and gave bad advice, but were loved by the media.
Trump asked good questions, often highlighted and framed problems correctly, but his 'implementations' were not at all good. Generating results thru a gargantuan bureaucracy does require strategy and planning. He did not transition well from managing the Trump companies to 'running' the Federal Gov't. Implementing change requires consistency over a longer time frame, and he did not demonstrate that. And, yes, the MSM/press did all they could to disrupt his every action, most notably the ginned up the Russia Narrative. But, he needed some good 'Chief Operations Officers' to fill the 'gap' for day to day activities he did not really like or was not particularly good at.
Well, you have identified the problem he faced. But he couldn't get rid of the people who opposed him. Fauci, Birx, and Collins were disgraceful, but if he fired any of them the Democrats and their press would attack him mercilessly.
Despite all the problems, President Trump is objectively rated good to very good, much better than Obama. He got the economy going well, focused on the middle class (blacks had their lowest unemployment on record in 2019), the tax reform law benefited the lower 80% of earners and only raised taxes on the top level.
His foreign policy was very good +. He focused on the major opponents of freedom, Iran, Russia, and Communist China, in his actions. As we know, he was the first President who came into office well-informed about Communist China. And he was really tough in his actions on Russia, unlike Obama.
His actions on human rights were excellent. Her was the first President to be a supporter of LGBTQ rights (and was for a long time before becoming President). He was the strongest supporter of religious freedom of all of our Presidents. He took effective actions to support women's rights after the disastrous Obama Presidency (the Iran deal was the worst U.S. attack on women's rights of our lifetimes, maybe ever, given Iran $50 billion, almost all of which was used to expand their attacks on women).,
He was not the first president in support of gay rights, were you high when you wrote this?
The money that Iran received for making the Iran Nuclear Deal was merely an unfreezing of overseas assets around $300-500B. The Deal was made with the approval of the UN Security Council. The idea that Trump rejected was to stop Iran from making the bomb. Now, that Trump is out, Biden is trying to restore the Deal because the world does not need any more nuclear weapons. But, how can we expect Trumpish Republicans to understand?
Yeah the US really believes that the world doesn't need any more nuclear weapons, which is why they signed off on a TRILLION dollar nuclear weapon modernization plan back in 2016 rather than working towards nuclear non-proliferation:
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/23/obamas-new-rationale-for-1-trillion-nuclear-program-augurs-a-new-arms-race-with-russia/
Obama's money allowed the Iranian government to increase its uranium ore by 70% and its number of centrifuges to enrich the uranium by 50% by the time President Trump put an end to the funneling of money to them. The deal places no permanent limits on Iran's continuing to use these resources after 2025. And thanks for the compliment! Trump's supporters are much better informed than those with TDS!
You're fairly accurate. The problem was, and remains, that Trump was temperamentally unqualified to be President. Everything had to be over the top, a disagreement was always taken personally. One cannot be President with exceptionally thin skin.
He was rude and crude, offending the sensibilities of the "sophisticates" who today constitute the leadership of the Democratic Party. If he runs again, he will have great difficulty winning. Yes, we got rid of an alleged authoritarian and replaced him with a real one.
How was he "rude and crude"? He listened carefully to people who had genuine knowledge.
Read Scott Atlas's definitive book about President Trump's activities on COVID during August through October 2020. For example, Dr Atlas arranged for four of the world's leading epidemiologists to come to Washington in the hopes of meeting with President Trump. A five minute meeting was set up. It actually lasted almost an hour, as President Trump asked them questions and listened carefully to their answers (pages 215-218).
There are many other examples. The correct statement about President Trump would be "cordial and informed".
Now he was sometimes "crude" in dealing with the Democratic Party media, but they deserved it for publishing so much fake news over RussiaGate alone, and regularly not listening to his answers to their questions.
In fact President Obama had a much thinner skin, recognizing he was ill-prepared to be President and had to cover up numerous major scandals.
Trump was a routinely disinterested and unorganized businessman, not a deep thinker or planner but more a BS'ing bluster boob, who used his art of BS to con people. He did know one fundamental of interpersonal relations and that is to never explain yourself, merely carry on with the BS and use that great fat filled face to merely stare down whoever was opposite him.
Which is why he fit so well into the cesspool of our political elites.
I think you meant "Biden" as your first word.
Trump was in fact very organized and focused on getting the best advice from the best-informed people. His success in getting the right people and listening to their advice in the Central Park ice rink renovation is a great example from the early 1980s (he asked the NY Rangers management and they told him to get a specific person with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and he did so, and let that person run the project and it worked great) and his purchase of Mar a Lago became a success thanks to his listening to his attorney in Palm Springs, who told him not to divide the property up and sell for people to build houses, but to construct a club. There are many other examples.
No, I meant Trump, the man who couldn't make money running casinos, a feat that requires some monumental incompetence. Last I recall, he had 11 business bankruptcies.
One of the reasons I doubted the Trump/Russia collusion farce, besides the fact Trump was more confrontational with Russia and its allies than any US president since the collapse of the USSR, was the Donald is incapable of concentrating on anything requiring detailed knowledge/planning. Simply put, he doesn't have time for details.
Biden. like his predecessors, is just a stooge for the US political/economic/military elites whose absolute belief in US exceptionalism/hegemony is one of the factors that resulted in the push of NATO eastward and going a bridge too far, first in Georgia and now Ukraine, needlessly confronting a nation with nuclear weapons right on its border. Their invasion of Ukraine was unjustified even as it was provoked by us, though, in comparison with our 20 year folly in the ME, it was understandable.
One day, our absolute inability to forsake US hegemony will see us confronting the PRC, a nation whose economy will become the world's largest sometime this decade.
In the meantime, rising gas prices, perhaps food shortages and increasing inflation are just the opening showcasing the real cost of US hegemony, which is headed towards ultimate failure.
Freedom isn't free, but it's cheap compared to US global hegemony.
Frenkle, that I think, sums up the issue. Words matter. Had Trump said 'using mouthwash can help, and perhaps help a lot in battling this virus thing' would have been exponentially better than "injecting a disinfectant". I saw his comments on You Tube, and he was sort of thinking out loud when making that comment. But, as President of the United States, have to do your "thinking out loud" in the shower, like Reagan is purported to have done. And yes, what a waste of time, talent, money, lives (mostly Afghan lives) our "war" in Afghanistan was.
But if you watched his comments then you should know that he never did say “drink bleach” or “inject yourself with bleach” or anything remotely close to it.
If anything this episode proved that words don’t matter at all…at least not if you happen to be on the right.
Only the narrative and your party affiliation matter. The powers that be will make up words to put in your mouth to match their preferred narrative.
He was posing a question (“Is there a way we could…?) to an advisor/doctor at the very end of a long press conference.
He mentioned that they were seeing great results with UV light and various types of disinfectants in laboratory settings.
Then he essentially asked…Is there a way to replicate these results inside the body? I don’t know…we’ll have to get doctors on that…but I think it could be interesting to look into.
Obviously I’m paraphrasing greatly and reducing the comments down…but that’s the essence of what was said.
In a normal, non-toxic environment…the response to a question like that might be: “That could be interesting to look into” or “Actually we’re already doing something similar with UV light therapy” or “That’s unlikely to work because…”
In other words…a conversation between reasonable people talking about an important subject.
Instead…what we got was: “Trump’s a Dangerous Psychopath Who Wants You to Drink Bleach!!!!!”
Ironically, in an effort to warn the public about dangerous misinformation that maybe 3% of the population would have seen without media amplification…This nonsense was plastered across hundreds of papers, mentioned in hundreds of minutes of air time, and memefied thousands upon thousands of times.
You know. Because the media cares about us so much and really needed to protect us from the bad dangerous man who was about to have millions of people swallowing gallons of bleach. Obviously, the media has to step into the gap and unequivocally tell us hundreds and thousands of times NOT to drink bleach.
Whew. That was a close one. I’m so glad the media was there to set the record straight and shout very loudly for weeks about NOT drinking bleach.
Who knows if I’d even be alive today otherwise.
Thinking out loud shouldn't be a reason for your political opponents to twist your words and take them out of context. But, hey, 'Murica.
Afghanistan's population in 2001 was around 24M, today it is around 40M, all throughout the "war" the Afghanistan people continued to pump out millions of babies. So, hold the tears about all the dead Afghan's because we finally left. But, when we left, we left them with trained up police, a new regime and plenty of equipment and infrastructure to defend their state, but they immediately capitulated and did not defend themselves. The pathetic Trumpers believe this is horrible, but what is horrible is defending a population which will not fight for their freedom.
If you really believed words matter you would delete your post. Your representation of Trump's comment is childishly inaccurate.
You’re so right, shooting bleach into your veins is exactly like gargling with mouthwash! Why did I I never think of this brilliant defense against what those hateful Woke Liberals say about our Dear MAGA King, the Best President Who Ever Presidented, may the Lord Baby Jesus bless him!
Bit early in the comments for this deep satire.
Trump filed for bankruptcy 6 times! Trump feared revealing his tax statements!
You’re arguing with a disruptor troll.
McConnell to Trump “ it’s a very small, private club in which you will never be welcome.” That’s it in a nutshell. And always be … because as Matt said, “we” are dangerously malleable.
I read Dr. Atlas's book and was not surprised by one word. I remember the smear campaign that was launched immediately and his every recommendation was attacked.
“Trump was an excellent listener” unbelievable
They are so deep up Trump’s ass that they’ve appeared out the other end and have bent back around to kiss said ass. An ouroboros of ass-kissing.
The last time I posted this comment (on a different Substack) I was called an anti-Semite, but here goes. Jared Kushner apparently believed either: that Birx and Fauci were MAGA supporters OR that they were beloved as Rfhirsch states. Thus politics, one way or the other, determined Trump's response to the pandemic. He indeed do and say the things Rfhirsch outlines above. But he listened to Jared on Birx and Fauci, and thus bears partial responsibility for the ruinous pandemic response that was amplified by Biden. And Trump is still touting the vaccines.
But Birx and Fauci were frauds. Just read Scott Atlas's book, "A Plague on our House". Atlas is one of the world's leading specialists on public health policy, and Trump asked him to come to DC to help get correct policies in place. Atlas reports how Birx, who had no background in public health policy, kept reporting meaningless numbers at the Task Force meetings and then advocating policies that were wrong. Fauci constantly changed his mind on what should be done, and he too was ignorant in public health policy. If Trump had fired them, the policies would have been much better.
We have to find ways of talking about our problems that de-emphasize the individual, the fetish of personality, and the irrelevance of the messenger --- and find a way to talk about systems, institutions, and the underlying networks which lead us to the same outcomes predominantly regardless of which twat is President.
From LBJ to present, we haven't had a decent leader of this country who could think, communicate, mobilize, and assist the majority of Americans for a safer, better life that was not born on hegemony, pay to play corruption, and deceit/fraud.
In fact, with JFK, we only had a small window - a year or two, and then it was shut (most everything before that and everything after the window was owned by the tripartite state of Corporations/Business, Military, and Covert Intelligence institutions). The key to solving any problem is knowing exactly what it is, so that it can be changed.
No one individual can or will change these networks. No President. No religious leader. No Musician. These networks are designed to withstand the cult of personality or groups/blocs of a few. Then again, I am sure you know all of this.
JFK’s claim to fame is that he was short in the head. He was a lousy president.
President Ronald Reagan certainly fits your definition: "a decent leader of this country who could think, communicate, mobilize, and assist the majority of Americans for a safer, better life that was not born on hegemony, pay to play corruption, and deceit/fraud." He also is considered one of the best informed Presidents on taking office.
I have read Atlas' book. I know and understand Birx and Fauci were/are frauds. I agree they should have been been fired. that they were not was SOLELY due to politics. So Trump bears some responsibility for our two year nightmare.
I can't seem to find any reference in here from supporters of 45 and his conversations with Bob Woodward about how bad the virus was and how he admitted playing it down. His press conferences during the daily briefings were campaign speeches. The fact that it didn't disappear in spring or after the election as he said shows his lack of knowledge. Saying he did all the economic gains is BS also as they started during the Obama years and there are charts that prove that. Why is it that republicans drive the car in the ditch every time they are handed one that is working. Why is it oil prices jump so high with Dems in control after the wrecker pulled the economy out of the ditch. I consider myself an independent who leans to the left socially and in the on middle economic issues. To hear someone say 80% tax break went to low income and middle-class is double speak. Facts show otherwise as does my tax return since 2017 when it passed with no debate in the middle of the night. The republicans don't want to govern or don't know how to do anything to help anyone but the 1%.
As a sidebar,how do you think Americans would feel if they saw the daily bombings in Iraq like we see know in Ukraine. The country looked like Florida with its concrete homes. When we go after Putin for war crimes does Cheney and the WHIG get the Hague treatment too? I left out George,not that I liked him,but because the invasion of Iraq was decided by PNAC before W was given the presidency by the Scotus decision to stop the counting 4 days early in Florida with the bullshit Equal protection decision.
The revisionism you are practicing here is deeply amusing, I’m almost convinced you believe it. Correct on almost everything about COVID, you say? Like injecting bleach to treat it, or how it’s all going to be gone by Easter 2020?
It's ironic that you talk about revisionism, and then you have that last sentence. If you provide here links to the actual statements he made with regards to those two examples, I challenge you to then demonstrate how you're not the one practicing revisionism.
You’re right, he doesn’t say bleach, but rather “disinfectant.” I was wrong. I think most reasonable people who listen to this, though, would find the President’s remarks to be silly and deeply misinformed:
https://youtu.be/33QdTOyXz3w
I was also wrong that he said it would specifically be gone by Easter, though he did say many times that it would go away or was going away pre-Easter 2020:
https://youtu.be/r8yOv4PwttM
He also had this press conference where he all but declares victory as he talks about opening up by Easter:
https://youtu.be/qV6b_8gD_bg
Apologies for conflating Trump’s ill-informed statements like that.
Thank you for at least partially acknowledging the ways that your statement was misleading, most people wouldn't have the honesty to do that. Of course, you did still continue to misrepresent the content of what he said, as those links you provided make clear, so you only get partial credit.
I'm not at all arguing for how well or ill informed Trump is, I don't really care. But I do strongly agree with Matt Taibbi when he said that Trump is both the most lying and the most lied about president in history, and it bothers me when people invent bullshit or misrepresent him when there are actual real things to criticize him on.
Your statements belong in the same bag as the "good people on both sides" Charlottesville lie that are standard go-tos that people bring up endlessly, so commonly used that they are a pretty good indicator of whether the person you are talking to actually knows about the topic at hand or have only ever heard the misrepresentation and are parroting what they heard without ever bothering to look into it for themselves.
Thanks for this example of Republican Trumpishness - every single claim you made here is false!
The left controls the mainstream media, hollywood, K-12 education, the social media moderators, academia, publishing, the administrative state, and corporate HR and PR departments.
The left's point of view is the hegemon. Yet, it still feels threatened if a couple nobody social media platforms don't sing in its preferred hymnal.
I know, OMB, but...
The left has zero power in this country. There is noting left about the Dems, other than some meaningless cultural posturing.
Absolutely the dumbest political question I've these last thirty years is "Where did all the moderate Repubs go to?", when the answer is they took over the Dem party in the 1990's.
And by "the left", you must mean "the liberals" right? Liberals are not on the left.
Orwell's (and Matt's) point entirely. Left/Liberal/Progressive/authoritarian/fascist/conservative/right/transphobe/homophobe/islamophobe/arachnophobe... all meaningless words getting more meaningless every day.
I think we need to re-understand the definition of “left.” We (and I include myself) continue to conflate the new left with the traditional liberal or Democrat. I think This is where we keep getting hung up and disoriented.
For the left the labels “right” “conservative” “Republican” have always been pejoratives. This left continue to use terminology to maintain the veneer of their familiar brand of the 20th and early 21st century.
Meanwhile those of us who have been turned off and away creating a whole new pool of “the other” Anyone not with them is the enemy. Those who don’t want to risk being excommunicated have no choice but to go along.
These people are a whole new breed. this ideology seems to be an amalgam of globalist-Marxist using identity and the promise of social, economic and environmental utopia thru diversity, inclusion and control. Control the media control the language control the narrative control behavior. The tactics and the motives are familiar
I don’t know what to call them other than dangerous.
Left/Right and liberal/conservative have become meaningless in terms of modern politics. For awhile I used 'Team Red' and 'Team Blue' but even that doesn't fit anymore. Either you're aligned with the globalist religion or you're not. I suspect refusing to bend the knee will carry an increasingly heavy price tag as time goes on.
The semantics are not all that important, but I would describe them as Globalist-Fascist. They are basically fascist minus the nationalist aspect that was so important in the 20th century. They use idpol/neo-Marxism as a tool to keep people divided, but it doesn't seem to be one of their animating principles. As you said, it's all about control. My guess is they're looking at economic and demographic trends, and they see huge risks of instability looming in the future. The increasingly aggressive measures to exert control may be an attempt to get ahead of that.
Personally, I don't see how the current alliance between the people you're describing with Big Tech/Business, Media, and the Academy CAN'T be called Fascism, but people go crazy when you do, so Totalitarian works as a substitute
In reality, "left" just means "people who sit on the left side of the legislative assembly". Seriously. Look it up.
It's a lot more useful to think of "left" and "right" as centers of power.
Liberals control that, not the left. That's why they largely backed Biden against Sanders.
I refer to the "left" as the Democrats, liberals, neocons, the mainstream media, the identity politic groups, the administrative state, collectivists and the cultural left.
I know that term triggers a lot of people, but the differences between Sanders leftists and liberals is not big enough IMO to distinguish.
Bottom line, "democrats" and "liberals" do not represent the breadth that is the Borg. And the Borg needs a name. It has been named "the left"
This is an inaccurate usage of the left. It groups Matt Taibi & Glenn Greenwald in with Biden & neocons. "The left" does not mean "everyone I don't like."
I understand. But Matt and Glenn share most of the same philosophies of Biden and the neocons re social issues, government spending priorities and tax policy. They are more similar than they are different.
And ultimately, that is the bucket they are put in. I know left-lefties have issues, and the term is not perfect, but it is the name the Borg has been given.
Yes, Truth Social censors content, but censoring Truth Social is censorship as well.
So you're shifting the goalposts, then?
Describing Truth Social as free-speech-oriented is simply false. It's Trump-speech-oriented.
isn't that whataboutism?
I'm not sure if this is sarcasm or a serious question (given that, in the article, Matt portrayed the word "whataboutism" as a modern day Orwellianism), but in the interest of civility I'll assume you're really asking.
It's not whataboutism. OP described Truth Social as a "free-speech-oriented" platform, which is obviously not a truthful characterization. If I had brought up Truth Social as a contrast to some complaint about Twitter or Facebook censoring people, that would be a fair criticism.
The key component of whataboutism is the arbitrary introduction of some new concept to try and rebalance a discussion in one's favor. It's more like a sub-species of strawman argument, where you take a specific criticism of one thing and convert it into a comparison between that thing and something else - implying that criticism of one requires approval of the other.
edit: a word
LOL.. c’mon, you know that’s silly… you don’t think the DNC is trying to figure out how to market their candidates style as more Trumpiam? Hillary was a lesson in “ how not to run a campaign”
Facebook censors lots of content. I suspect Truth Social will not be censoring more than Facebook.
True story….. when the Energy Tsar ( they might want to drop that title) recently suggested that “ investing in green energy can end inflation” … I commented in a friend’s post “ Monsieur Kerry should be hung by his Hermés ties” ( French silk, $225) … FB sent me a notice that my language is threatening and dangerous…..😂😂😂😂😂 such pansies with no sense of humor..
Now there’s a classic example of Zuckerberg, Dorsey , Google etc can shut down Trump but Trump starts a social network, follows their lead and 3,2,1… heads explode!! “ I can even” which my daughter demands I stop saying…
Okay, if your veins are still oozing with TDS bile at this point…. You really don’t understand how complicit the media has been in vilifying non politician Trump and giving Biden a 24/7 pass… what lie did Trump tell that’s worse than Biden lying about the innocent truck driver being drunk and killing his first wife?? And milking this bold faced lie on the campaign trail… for decades…..
I did not and still do not like Trump, but I do agree that you are right about the difference in coverage. Biden is far worse on so many levels and he gets nothing but cheer leading by the MSM.
I agree, but to me, an Independent who lived in Europe long enough to not jump into the binary fold, I found it most curious and telling how adversely most people reacted to his nerve to enter the political arena… “ he has no experience, he’s not a politician “.. ME: yea, so?? And also ME: “ why do I have to belong to a party to vote?” And PS.. I have my own personal Biden highly inappropriate story from 48 years ago, so, his badmouthing Trump about the “way he treats women…” .. please, they are all such liars.
"And PS.. I have my own personal Biden highly inappropriate story from 48 years ago, so, his badmouthing Trump about the “way he treats women…” .."
OK then! When are you going to dish?
I’m not, because the two times my story began to get traction, I received a threatening email and FB message with my grown kids addresses and cell#s. The second time when Tara Reade and other women had come forward, I received a text advising me to not “proceed “…. This happened in the 70s, drunken ass grabbing male passengers were a dime a dozen, “ HR” as we know it did not exist. I was not traumatized by the actual incident…I was however certainly rattled when contacted by apparent Biden goons…and was told by one media contact that this is SOP to scare accusers. Mission accomplished… and no, I was not about to hire an attorney. The lesson I learned : like everybody else, don’t assume journalists to be honest in their intentions.
Trump and Biden are both pathological liars and yes, the MSM covers for Biden. But it does little good arguing about which is worse.
That’s not my argument. My argument is that the majority of DC and the media will never give a non politician a fair chance. Like that song “ Don’t Rock the Boat, Baby” Look what they did to Bloomberg, what the heck was that all about ?
Same thing happened to outsider Sanders
Yup, I don’t agree with Bernie on everything , but I would gladly voted for him .. so I took a pass in 2016…
Hey, thanks for the insults…I’ll only respond that on a global level, maybe Trump doesn’t see the value of endless military involvement… like where we go in and destabilize third world countries so our MIC can continue to be a cash cow for vendors and keep politicians $$ re elected… maybe it’s time to consider being “ frenemies” so everyone understands where the lines are drawn… and we are not always having a global DICK OFF over who has the biggest arsenal? Maybe re direct some of those obscene amounts of money to our societal woes that now especially with COVID are doing years of collateral damage. And lastly, and I’m breaking my own rule here… when I was a rather cute 24 year old stewardess , newly minted widowed Senator Biden let his fingers do the walking under my uniform while serving him cocktails… inquiring about “the Mile High Club.” And when my story got traction, I and my grown children got threats via texts and emails. So stop ASSuming. There may be so many private sector people who could be incredible leaders for this country.. but DC made sure that won’t happen. George Carlin “ it’s a big private club and you ain’t welcome.” I truly believe this paradigm needs to go. We are doomed to mediocrity and Jerry Springer theatre.
Are there any of our great leaders that aren't psychopaths? And once again we have allowed them to take control of our world. The blame game is a distraction to keep people fighting each other. The answer to "Which one is a fault? Who is the worse?" is "Yes."
Ronald Reagan certainly wasn't a "psychopath". Nor was Calvin Coolidge, or Dwight Eisenhower, … .
I think Coolidge and Eisenhower lived in a different world, so it is harder to discern their qualities. Nor do I think I know much about Reagan. He was, after all, an actor.
To quote a well-known rabbi, 'By their fruits you shall know them.'
The problem for any aspiring great leader is the essential nature of the game which they're trying to get into, which some have called Realpolitik (although the word has been given different meanings). In Realpolitik, "Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." What matters is power. That is the political version of psychopathy -- a lack of concern for others (unless they serve the purpose). There are, of course, other moral frameworks, but to the committed believer in Realpolitik these are fluff, what matters is what you can make other people do. Benevolence, affection, humanity, even leaving people alone, do not further the aims of Realpolitik / psychopathy except to the extent that those who prefer them can be tricked. I would think this would be obvious.
It is true that one great leader may do more damage than another, but that seems to be a matter of opportunity rather than a difference of intention.
President Trump is ranked as the third toughest President on Russia and the Soviet Union, behind only Truman and Reagan. He took at least 10 actions against Russia. President Trump is the only President so far to be fully informed about Communist China, and he was extremely tough on them with his actions, as well. Unlike Biden (and Obama) President Trump knows how to negotiate. He says nice words about people, but he is extremely tough in his actions. It is how successful negotiating is done.
Talking or posting about individual personalities in an entire series of political networks of power is like taking a single granule of sand and saying hey look at this desert.
It polishes up the profile of spectacle, and de-emphasizes all of those mechanisms of the deep state that have been fucking us for so long (networks, political alliances, boards of directors, contracts, partnerships, lobbying, NGO's etc..).
When will people learn that arguing over who is President (bad or worse) in this country is a legitimate waste of time and a construction of the wealthy to get you distracted over matters in which they control both parties? All of them are idiots and controllable - that's the entire point. We do not live in a democracy, just a sacrifice zone of illusion.
Well, there's 'Orwellian', and then there is 'laughable' and 'comical'. As with many things Trump, usually a tossup between any of those three categories.
Your comment is a little ironic in that I find this isn’t a left or right thing anymore. In fact the left/right argument is a cornerstone of that same book. It’s just manifested in the oceans war. Matt’s closing thoughts do a good job of putting a point on this. And I agree with your sentiments at their core. Isolation of one’s perspective is the worst vantage anyone can take or promote.
Nah, they'll get shut down eventually.
It's easier to plant false flags on internet media platforms that only a small percentage of people visit. You sell some crazy story to the out of touch elites in the NYT, and to the yokels who consume Fox News and since neither target market cares about the freedoms of people deemed "outside the group", it's as simple as a 24 hr news cycle and subsequent bans.
Probably it'll be a relief when the nukes start flying.
If that's the kind of thing people might laugh at, then either they have strange senses of humor, or I do. Because I agree with that sentiment and don't understand why it would be funny to anyone. I'm worried about the long-term future of those platforms, though, given what happened to Parler.
If I were to express my opinions freely, I would risk social and material consequences and not just for myself. So I don't. This is the outcome for someone committed to an anti-establishment and skeptical frame of reference. I find it very stressful. I get one or two good nights sleep a week. I think I'd suffer less if I were a natural double-thinker, i.e. an unselfconscious double-thinker, unlike Winston.
When I was a young man, I studied in the Soviet Union. I felt so bad for the Russians I knew that lived in fear of expressing their true opinion about events, politics or anything. I couldn't imagine ever needing to do that. I did my part to protect my freedom, like joining the 1980s ACLU. Now I live with the same kind of fear. Say what you think and you could lose your job, your professional standing and the simple ability to participate in society.
This is so true. Everything that we learned was bad about the USSR and China is now part of our so-called "Democracy." Many of us are old enough to see this.
Years ago, I knew a Soviet Refugee who was returning to Putin's Russia because he saw that the US was quickly becoming what he remembered the USSR was. Many of us saw the pattern, even before 9/11, but the masses are more and more entranced by the MSM twisting of "facts." Lately, because of the recent Corona crisis, many former Soviets had noted that modern Russia had once again become what the Soviet Union used to be. It seems we get all the bad parts of Communism and all the bad parts of Capitalism and we are set against one another to fight about it.
Time to take the best of what works - which is not what the WEF has come up with. They themselves admit that their might be a yet unheard of solution to modern day problems...but their 4th Industrial Revolution is the best they can do and they will use current events to implement the agenda without our complete knowledge or ascent.
Everyone should take the time to read about the 4th Industrial Revoultion - something that Putin and Biden alike support. This conflict is to once again keep us distracted while we continue to give up our rights in the name of "freedom" - a freedom totally controlled by AI and techocrat forces who have no room in their world for the actual human heart. None of us, in Ukraine or elsewhere should be willing to shed their humanity for this misguided 4th Industrial Revolution.
It is time for the WEF to have honest talks with the suppressed voices. Let the people actually decide and it will be that some will truly want to live in the WEF future. But many will not and given the track record of previous industrial revolutions, none of them worked out well in the end for the earth or the actual people - but they always make the elite more and more powerful.
This it is time to say, not no, but wait! More discussion needed. The WEF has been one sided in its approach and needs balance. Full disclosure is the best way forward. Most wars come about because of lies and lack of full disclosure - which result in the hoi polloi taking up arms. War is a racket.
Good Lord--the only thing ordinary people should do with the WEF is pray that the whole confab be vaporized by an Act of God. "Honest talks"? WTF?I?
Yeah and a very good very short book by USMC General Smedley Butler which should be taught in public school world wide.
The elites will NEVER ask what we want or think. They believe they know best. After all, they are all wealthy, well-educated, powerful and successful - all of which points to their superiority. Interestingly enough I believe most if not all of the players are white. I guess DIE isn’t so DI at the top
Mearsheimer would say that is not how great powers behave. They do what they want when it serves their interests (military, corporate and intelligence being the three most powerful).
And I might quibble with your characterization slightly. They do know what we think without having to ask (they read our e-mails, get our texts, read our social media) and have programs/models designed to capture all of the relevant data - so that they do not have to ASK us anything. This is much worse and probably what you are referring to (they NEVER have to engage us) but they know what we want and what we think thanks to technology companies, the media propaganda, and the desire to avoid domestic blowback.
Of course, they're mostly sociopaths and controlling personalies. We, unfortunately are vulnerable to their stories.
Define "we". Honest question
Ooh, do tell LorriAnn. Is it all whites who are guilty by association or just a certain subgroup? Any religions you want to blame specifically? Come on, spill the beans! Who are you targeting?
"Oligarchical Collectivism"
while the hoi poloi argue about right and left, the fascists and socialists took over everything.
I agree 100%. I went to the USSR in 1971 on a 3 week HS trip. While we were not permitted to have much contact with the people, I know how stifling the atmosphere was and felt bad for the people. Today my kids know not to speak their minds except with family and very close friends. Very sad…
This system won't let me "like" your comment. but the points you make are so cogent and necessary.
Why I can't 'like' when I see other likes? is that a glitch?
It appears across all Substack comment sections.
There appears to be a time delay for the system to respond. Calm down, click the heart once, move on, ✔ back later and the heart will probably be ❤.
I made a similar trip in 1984. I can see where the "atmosphere" could be considered less than inspiring. However, as a lower middle class scrub I will say that I felt safer there (Moscow, St. Petersburg, etc.) than on any of my "sightseeing" trips to N.Y.C. I can also say I feel bad for people I have seen sleeping regularly on (and under) cardboard in D.C., San Diego, and L.A. for the past 40 years. Not sure what the situation is in the Russian Federation today, but I can honestly say that I never saw anyone sleeping on the streets in the U.S.S.R. while I was there.
Like anywhere, it depends on what socio-economic class level you experience a city---as well as what parts you visit. If you're living on the high end of the hog, then I doubt any metropolis would be perceived as stifling.
Why would you teach them to be so fearful? The U.S. is not remotely like the U.S.S.R. in the '70s. It is only because U.S. Progs have so enthusiastically embraced suicidal self-censorship that one might even consider such a far-fetched comparison. If you want to hide in the shadows, fine--but don't pull your kids in with you
"I did my part to protect my freedom, like joining the 1980s ACLU."
Yeah, back when it made sense to join the ACLU.
Hah they still have me on their mailing list to renew my membership. I stopped doing that when they stopped fighting for civil liberties.
If your boss would fire you for expressing an opinion, you are working for a fascist. Is that something you want to continue doing?
So are people supposed to shop for new employers based on their politics? I suspect you are well heeled, as most of us can't afford to do that.
That's why nobody likes you.
You're cute when you're angry...
If you were working for me, for sure I would fire you; and tell you to get off my lawn - for posting this utter filth.
They want to algorithmically ban and censor in real time. Good idea? Am I troll? Have you "analysed" enough of my comments yet?
I feel like what sets this moment apart from many of the forgotten/fading panics Matt mentions is that the globalist-billionaire-tech-Pharma cabal are so close to realizing their dream of total surveillance and control of everyone. Not just the USSR bloc, not just China, but the entire world.
As Matt had pointed out many times, the left and the right in the U.S. have flipped sides in 20 years’ time. It was never about Dems vs GOP. The real battle has always been the rich fucks who pay politicians to write the laws in their favor and use the police and military to enforce those laws (or “mandates”).
The consequences of letting these creeps get their way on a global level will be so much more devastating than losing one’s job or social standing — collectively, yes, and for future generations but also for most of the individuals reading this column.
If enough people realize this — soon enough — this moment could change the entire course of human history. Because there are way more of us than there are of them and their power resides chiefly in the kind of trickery Matt is talking about here. If enough of us break out our pitchforks and call “bullshit” all at once they have to back down.
It's not obvious to me that the Western globalist oligarchs will emerge the winners from this war. Idk what's going to happen but the global schism now starting to unfold _may_ partition the world so that Iron Curtain 2 surrounds Nato, not Russia, as the rest of the world dedolarizes their trade and reserves. The US$ may end up being the reserve currency of Nato, not of the planet. This would deliver unprecedented power and wealth to certain Western industries by removing the competition from exports from Russia/RoW from the Nato market. But it does not deliver planetary control. In a sense, this scenario is the end of global hegemony of $-based economic liberalism.
Sadly, I think the American Empire would take the world out before losing this battle — and it has the fire power to do it. The “last” empire might be our Great Filter.
Takes organization and courage. A number of people were angry about what they perceived to be a fraudulent election. A disorganized disturbance destroyed many of their lives.
Yep, my first thought reading the above was the Canadian truckers. It actually looked like they might succeed for a minute.
One side has a legal monopoly on force. One side controls all the money. One side controls the flow of information. And they have secret police to disrupt or subvert any threats.
Succeed in what, exactly?
Most of them were not even truckers.
Did you read their insane and deluded MOU?
All those things are true. Does that mean we should just let them kill us?
Actually, the truckers succeeded. Canada dropped the vaccine mandate. It was not done without risk or pain, however.
Oh bullshit. All that was already on the way.
If it was "on the way," why did Trudeau attempt to seize their bank accounts? You are a rube if you think that this is the behavior of a government that intends to go along with their demands.
I don’t know about that. I was listening to the Winnipeg/St Louis game yesterday broadcast on a Canadian radio station. They ran a PSA about proof of injection to cross the border. Also did you know you can’t get into CA if you have a DUI on ur record? They included that in the same announcement which I thought was a pretty interesting mix. LOL
It works the same in the opposite direction.
I am so with you - though I can’t help but ask myself everyday: “How can we build a counter-Revolution when we can’t even manage to mobilize a truck convoy?” We say “we can fight this.”
I forgot who said this but it was something like, socialists never say “how,” they’re going to accomplish their objectives. I feel like those of us who want to fight are the same. Right or wrong I think one of the reasons I don’t walk away from the corporate cesspool is there isn’t a larger plan. I sure don’t have one. And it feels like we’re shouting into a void.
That’s because you are. See you and people like you are like spark plugs in a car. In this case the driver is trying to start the car with the wrong fuel mix. You have relevance but it’s like that old trope about the broken watch. I am not trying to put you down, I’m just saying that you need to understand and learn patience. Keep your powder dry.
Fair point
People don’t stand up in any meaningful way until they no longer care whether they live or die. That takes a long time, decades perhaps and by then everyone will have long since been disarmed.
No need to disarm anyone when thought control is now perfected science. That aside, you were never going to stop a Marine division with your beloved AR 74. lol
Yes! Thank you, which is why people who won't stand up for obvious lies are as much a part of the problem as the people openly advocating for them. You think it's bad now? You want to preserve your job for your kids? What will be left if you don't?! What world will your kids live in? Don't you see the consequences will be so much worse?
2 yrs ago I came close to losing my job when my family decided Im a racist and one of them “anonymously” reported me to my employer. Since then I’ve asked myself what different does it make if I lose everything now or 10yrs from now? If the Great Reset is a thing then my savings will be worthless, my home will be worthless and my white privilege will be punished with a low social credit score. Problem is there are so many issues and crises I don’t know where to start. Local politics seems like a good idea but this fish is rotting from the head down and we need big numbers FAST.
Wow--that's some "family" you've got. My sympathies--sincerely.
Thanks. It’s been quite an experience.
Trolls love to post the same garbage over and over.
Hello there, fellow white person. Your story of a family member reporting your to your employer for racism sounds like just the kind of thing white people would do, amiright?
What a strange way to view people.
Americans haven’t suffered enough to make sacrifices. They will. By then it will be too late.
I might quibble a little. Many have suffered, but they do not have enough information with which to direct their energies.
For example, if the Belgian footage of Maidan Massacre (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tVMarKUR2Y ) found in Revealing Ukraine by Oliver Stone, then you would not see as much traction on Putin (as one in a long line of evil doers). We'd see how instrumental Clinton's foreign policy was as Secretary of State, we'd see the rise of Victoria Nuland and Anthony Blinken in the State Department (both Ukrainians and both point people in waging covert war against Russia), John McCain, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden etc... all of this was a part of the plan.
In fact, 2008 in Bucharest they called for NATO to include Ukraine - knowing the Russian response (since the head of the CIA, Burns, was then ambassador to Russia). The RAND Corporation developed a 2019 report explicitly detailing how to "extend" Russia - see here (https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR3000/RR3063/RAND_RR3063.pdf )
We have been planning this provocation, Brzezinski Afghanistan 2.0 for a long time.
So, what we suffer from the most in this country is ignorance (not only what is happening in the world outside of our bubble, but what is happening in the corridors of power). This is what makes me think, like you possibly, it could be too late.
By not speaking freely the consequences will be worse, plus you are teaching your kids to bend over and do bad things for money. Seriously. You are a BIG part of the problem. I spoke out against corporate abuse and lost a six figure job. I then downsized my home for seed money for my own business and now am self employed making the same money only four years later. You can do it. My kids gained hope for a better future and saw an example of living by strong moral principles. They lost a big bedroom. I can live with that.
1. I am a SMALL part of the problem, very small, but not nothing. 2. I have no kids but I take every opportunity to encourage skeptical anti-establishment thinking in all including children. 3. Congrats on your independence. 4. I quit corporate servitude 14 years ago. It took more than 4 years to recover the lost income but we did it. Now we're a service provider with moral responsibility to the clients and their communities. Alienating them will be a net negative across those involved so I don't want to do that. It would be destructive and I would know that it was motivated by my own narcissism.
Respect. That’s part of the crazy making aspect of where we are at — so many people who are not going to get it and will just dig in deeper if you push them.
I dropped out of the corporate world in 2001 after 9-11 and it also took me years of struggle to carve out a decent living. I probably lost 50 percent of my clients (mostly west coast liberal laptop class) because I wouldn’t toe their lines on Covid, anti-racism, etc.
But if I can help a client or maintain a friendship that adds value to my life and I know that person is too brainwashed to hear my POV, then I don’t try to convert them.
It just ends up causing hostility and in my experience you can’t reason with a true believer.
Single, no children and no safety net. I don’t know what I would do for a living that wouldn’t be moving from one corp monster to another. My current employer monitors our social media accounts now - another form of repression. My education and first career was in journalism - a profession that no longer exists. I’m not 30 anymore so Struggling to survive doesn’t leave much time for activism. Everyday I feel i have to choose between saving my soul or my own ass. I don’t think it’s possible to do both and I live a life of hypocrisy.
I don't think you should censor your clients either. The whole point is not to censor but to live according to your values.
Why would you think that I censor my clients?
You're right. You said you don't want to alienate them. I'm not sure what this means and I should not have assumed it meant shutting them down. You certianly don't have to preach and you should be tolerant. When I talk about standing up for your values it means not breaking the law or doing immoral things just to save your job.
One might be compelled to censor one's clients by yet other censors.
Thank you for your comment. But I only have one life to live, and I don't want to spend the rest of it as a destitute, forgotten martyr. I would rather choose my battles when I at least have some chance of success. I am still trying to get my local staff left behind out of Afghanistan. By necessity, I am making perpetrations to live and unemployed, unplugged life.
I don't think you will live as a destitute, forgotten martyr. I think that's the fear that keeps you in check.
That kind of fear can keep people in check. But I generally prefer to assume that people are best placed to make their own decisions.
I wish we would all try to look at it this way: The only reason so many of us are afraid to stand up and speak out is because we're all confident that few others will speak up alongside us. Just imagine the power we'd have if, say, 80% of the 99% stood up and spoke out? Could they possibly fire or deplatform all of us? That is the main issue... we are not united as a class, whereas for all their rivalry and personal differences, the 1% most certainly are class conscious.
How do we get there? It's not simple to make a population think in a new way and act selflessly in the interest of a mutual goal. If you want to do it without coercion, it takes generations of consistent political mobilization.
The big difference is you have courage, and the vast majority of the public are abject cowards. “Safety-ism” is WAY too nice a word for it…
Not long ago I was reading the story of a woman who lost her job, her house, most of her friends, and a lot of other things, while putting her family at risk, all because she said the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place. It wasn't anything terrible, either; it was just taken out of context by a few censorious people who made it their self-righteous business to do as much damage as possible. If you read around you will find many such stories. Could be about a war or a disease or school curriculum or diet choices or almost anything. We have reached a stage in the deterioration of our culture and society where such things are par for the course. People now have to pick their battles according to their strength and resources. Sometimes you can do only a very little thing. I don't think anyone should be disparaged for that.
Fair enough, I certainly know that goes on. Please understand though it's, in fact, NOT happening everywhere, or even most places. It happens in organizations that are highly invested in the Progressive POV: academia, tech, NGOs, media, etc. No one works in organizations like those that doesn't at least feel a kinship with that orientation--why would they need to? To many of them, it is their entire raison d'être. I agree it must be awful to work under the thumb of the personality-disordered authoritarians that run those places. Happily, there is a wide world of alternatives, if one is willing to consider them.
Everyone makes choices, and MOST importantly, all humans are deeply and permanently programmed to respond to incentives. When the pain outweighs the positives (or vice-versa), people act, people change.
Thank you for your thoughtful response, and best wishes.
This fear of publicly speaking your mind that you and so many others hold, Tom, is proof that we *do not actually live in a democracy.* This alone should motivate huge numbers of the 99% into a revolt and demand for fundamental change. The problem is, too many loud voices in America only want freedom of speech for popular topics that do not offend certain demographics or which are not perceived as "unpatriotic" during times of war. In other words, saying things that some people might find offensive; or questioning the decisions of the government during its latest war, respectively.
If you don't risk social and material consequences where will you be in a couple of years? Most likely worse off that remaining where you are.
You’re wrong. Most totalitarian regimes totally back down as soon as everyone complies. Just obey so this can all be over!
...totalitarian regimes exist because "everyone" puts them there in the first place.
I think it has more to do with consolidating power, than everyone puts them there.
I disagree... in part. I postulate there can be no accumulation or consolidation of power without the enablement or acquiescence of the masses. A critical mass of the public must want the dictatorship for it to coalesce.
Disagree. A critical mass needs to acquiesce to it; what they might "want" is irrelevant. When the existing political, social, or economic arrangements no longer have the adherence of the people, a determined minority can impose a new arrangement. Most will take a "wait and see" attitude.
In the words of Jefferson and others, "every nation gets the government it deserves."
https://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/news/a34473/internet-troll-study-stanford-cornell/
Totalitarian regimes back down after everyone complies? Show your work. Give some historical accounting. Good luck with that.
There’s missing sarcasm, and then there’s missing an entire hemisphere.
and then there is misquoting Jefferson. Has, not gets.
I think that was sarcasm...
e. pierce's function on the TK threads is akin to the role performed by the "rat" terriers of old farming yore.
Functioning much like a software algorithm, a "troll" terrier
sniffs out "specific patterns of behavior from online trolls, [and] are more likely to focus on a few threads and post irrelevant content, and they have much lower writing quality than fellow commenters (which isn't much of a surprise)."
And while an algorithm won't shit on your rug or dismiss you as a PSYCHOTIC ASSHOLE TROLL...they won't fetch your slippers either.
I guess autism has an ugly side...
Yikes 😱 lol
"If my thought dreams could be seen
They'd put my head in a guillotine "
Dylan
I'm going thru exactly the same thing, especially regarding sleep. I've never felt more like a pariah in my life (at 71), and I've always felt like a pariah.
There's a reason they named it "social distancing" and not "physical distancing"!
Tom- same for me. I Dont remember ever feeling this helpless and hopeless. I’ve been canceled by family (one of whom went after my job) and booed at by a handful of whatever we call them at a town council meeting. Sometime during the past 2yrs I learned of Yuri Bezmenov’s warnings to the US in the early 1980s. now I look back at my days in college and kick myself for not recognizing the slow creep of division and otherism. I fear that we have reached the acceleration phase detailed by the Soviet propagandist/defector and that there is no turning back.
Who do you believe--yourself or the people attacking you? People attack when they feel threatened, and the slow realization by the public that the Progressive agenda is Totalitarian is an existential threat to them. Sure, it's scary to call bullshit on their nihilism but that is the price of freedom from coercion and gaslighting. The silver lining is that it gets a lot easier once you get used to it.
Two quotes by LorriAnn on this very article:
1. "The elites will NEVER ask what we want or think. They believe they know best. After all, they are all wealthy, well-educated, powerful and successful - all of which points to their superiority. Interestingly enough I believe most if not all of the players are white."
2. "now I look back at my days in college and kick myself for not recognizing the slow creep of division and otherism."
Now let's sing a song:
One of these things is not like the other thing.
One of these things just doesn't belong.
Can you tell which thing is not like the others
And spot the troll by the end of this song.
Are you asking if the person who contacted my company’s ethics hotline and sent screenshots of my posts is white? Yes. And my family Is American of Cuban-Spanish descent.
I asked that in a previous comment, but that's not what this comment was about. This comment was merely an observation. It's not every day I see someone pivot within the space of a few posts from spreading racial hatred to bemoaning the media for doing the same. That's all.
Explain where you found "racial hatred" in LorriAnn's posts. Be specific.
I second this. Very curious.
If you want to turn a Savonarola-supporting zealot into a Jeffersonian defender of free speech, target the mob on them. It's not hard. Every word or deed by every person can be made to offend someone.
While peace can be found through absolute surrender you still have to look at yourself in the mirror the next morning.
Do you think the people who so beautifully threw paper airplanes into the Guggenheim cauldron are unable to look at themselves in the mirror?
Only if their goals were achieved, the no-fly zone established, and WW III well under way.
The unconsciousness doublethinker has it easier.
No. Their corrosive narcissism requires it--both literally and figuratively
You obviously have no trouble with mirrors...
Troll is trolling you. Trolls, like "assholes", lack even the minimum self-awareness to know that they are trolls/assholes which are the same thing, just slightly different flavours of feces.
I think they’re unable to find the toilet without their nurse.
You’re not alone.
People need to stop saying "our opinions" and start saying "the truth", because that is what is being suppressed.
Don't buy that one. No one can always know what "the truth" is, which is why freedom of opinion matters. It's also not very convincing to claim "truth" as one's own pronouncements.
Try meditation. I find I have to do it more and more nowadays, just to keep sane.
Just stating you are somehow in danger for expressing yourself is not believable without a hell of an explanation. Makes you look weak.
Anyone who is dependent on an organization for a paycheck... or for third parties to purchase their goods and services is always in danger of expressing himself or herself.
Sounds like they work for fascists—and that’s a choice. No getting around it
The fascist's favorite tool to deal with those who call them out. Fascist asshole...
I am weak. Obviously.
e. pierce's function on the TK threads is akin to the role performed by the "rat" terriers of old farming yore.
Functioning much like a software algorithm, "troll" terriers sniff out "specific patterns of behavior from online trolls, [and] are more likely to focus on a few threads and post irrelevant content, and they have much lower writing quality than fellow commenters (which isn't much of a surprise)."
And while an algorithm won't shit on your rug or dismiss you as a PSYCHOTIC ASSHOLE TROLL...they won't fetch your slippers either.
I'm gonna buy you a nice fruit basket...
You don't need to continually post your handbook...
At the end of 1984 Winston imagines a bullet going through his brain - Big Brother had taken everything from him that mattered: love of language, books, love itself and pressured him by the thing that scared him to most -- so with all of that gone he might as well be dead. Hold onto your memories, write them down. Hold onto your freedom of thought - you know you aren't crazy, even if everyone around you is going along with it. Orwell's book resonates now because humans are predictable and history repeats. It's a great book. Just remember - it costs those idiots on Twitter nothing to come from you. They risk nothing. You are risking a lot - and for that many of us are grateful.
Everyone my age is glad we’re old and wishes we were even older.
I am glad I didn’t have children. I have never ever wavered on this decision, scarier, I made this decision in the fourth grade. I am 62 years old.
I knew in my early 20s I didn't want to raise kids in this world. 20 years later I'm more happy than ever with that decision.
That's a pretty depressing line of reasoning if you take to its logical conclusion.
It is depressing even at face value. An absolutely defeatist position. Having children is incredibly meaningful and joyful. I know there is more good than bad in the world, in the universe. When I encounter someone who disagrees I know I can't convince them - it comes from experience, not reason. But damn, choosing to become an evolutionary dead end just to spite the world is the ultimate manifestation of one being oneselve's own worst enemy. If there is a meaning to life, a good one might be to make existence a better place than how we found it. Raising good kids to replace us necessary for that end.
There are people who look at their family, see dysfunction, lack of compassion, empathy, basic things like; feeding your kids, keeping them warm, safe, is beyond them. They may or may not have psychological problems or just don’t care, (some one else will take care of it ie the state, government, grandparents) there is a cost for this, not paid by the parents but paid by children. To people who have great parents, childhoods, are safe warm, fed and have support emotionally, financially, the parents may even like/love their kids. For many, that is a dream. I am glad that I chose no children. A dead end isn’t such a bad thing, I am not thinking of not having kids to spite the world or anything of that sort. I am thinking of saving one kids mine, make believe, not having to live in a post nuclear world, with no safety net, trying to survive every moment of every day. Why would I want my kids be responsible for the mess several generations have made.
Well, it would solve a lot of long-term problems.
I made the decision because of a bad marriage. When it ended I was happy about that. Within a couple of years I felt regret. Now I’m sad about it but at least it’s not their future that keeps me up at night.
Amen brother
That's the darkest, most horrifyingly true joke I've heard in several days.
I take it that you missed our illustrious Vice President's triumphant Rainbow Tour of Eastern Europe this week?
You mean the “Don’t cry for my Tulsi Gabbard, the truth is, I can’t form sentences” Rainbow Tour?
Diction is irrelevant so long as one possesses the necessary melanin and gonads to be considered "historic".
I believe your take is correct. But, now that it started, the jokes keep coming. I went and searched for Rainbow Trout of Eastern Europe. I may have poured myself a ridged one a half hour ago.
If we stop laughing we'll be left crying, screaming, or both. I choose to hold onto the laughter as long as possible. And some days the jokes just write themselves.
(the Rainbow Tour was a reference to Evita Peron, who also slept her way to the Vice Presidency. That didn't end so well for her country either)
Not me and I'm 78; I can always end it but it's a one way trip. I hate almost everything that's happening in the Western world but so far my life is good and as long as it's fun, I want it to continue. "Nhil illegitimi carborundum"! Don't let the bastards get you down!
Its "grind you down" and not "get you down". Carborundum is an abrasive they put on sandpaper. If you don't use the word grind then the joke doesn't work.
Picky picky; I know that duuh. Actually its mostly used in grinding wheels etc. There, I can be picky too.
I hate to agree but… I kind of agree
"Hold onto your freedom of thought - you know you aren't crazy, even if everyone around you is going along with it."
Yes! At times in the past, when I would expend much mental energy on the state of the world and its descent into madness, my therapist would ask me if I ever had suicidal thoughts, and I always had the same response: I'm not the one with the problem.
I love Orwell but we need to clarify.
George Orwell predicted nothing. He was not a prophet. He was merely brilliant at fictionalizing what already was and had been.
He wrote with sheer genius about the horrors of the Twentieth Century and how we got there. It is what he lived through first hand and observed.
We are supposed to read his books so that history does not repeat itself, as it has time and time again - nothing new under the sun.
Read 1984 as education, open your eyes and finally put a stop to it because it already has been-so many times before.
I loved your comment. I wanted to share that I recently heard someone say that prophets don't predict the future, they make us see our present more clearly. It's more like they open our eyes to see our current times more clearly. I thought that was interesting.
It's true. When we read PK Dick or JG Ballard and are astonished at the predictive power, we're really seeing how little has changed.
I like that. Noce way of putting things.
Orwell was, indeed, no prophet. But he saw the world as it was. He wrote amazing and poignant novels that were thinly veiled warnings of our distopian futures-- should we refuse to take action to preserve hard won justice and individual free will. That was way back in 1947.
These warnings have been repeated numerous times since then--- to little avail. I am reminded of Spencer Tracy's warning at the end of the movie "Judgement at Nuremburg" from 1961, Burt Lancaster, a Nazi judge who was referencing the Holocaust to Spencer by lamenting and pleading with his American counterpart for moral salvation by saying: "I never knew it would come to that. You must believe. You must believe." Tracy responded to him by saying, deadpan: "It came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent".
The disintegration of powerful societies can always be traced back to a thousand little lashes of the soul.
In fact, Orwell's concept of "the memory hole" wasn't based on his experience of being targeted by Stalin for being a member of the POUM during the Spanish Civil War. It was based on instantly shifting public opinion in Allied countries concerning Stalin after the Soviet Union became one of the "Allies." Orwell had enormous difficulty getting Animal Farm published for that very reason.
I should have done my research before posting my comment. Some of Orwell's influence for the "memory hole" must have been based on his own experience trying to get Animal Farm published. But as D.J. Taylor writes in his book, On 1984: A Biography (2019):
It was here [in Spain], for the first time in his life, that he had seen a totalitarian regime [the Soviet Union] in action, not only bent on liquidating its enemies--there was even a Spanish Communist Party poster emblazoned with the image of a boot stamping 'on all who resist forever'--but manipulating the past to ensure that its own version of history would be the one that survived. It was in Spain, as [Orwell] later acknowledged, that he read newspaper articles that bore no relation to the known facts and saw troops whom he knew to have fought valiantly denounced as cowards and traitors. It was in Spain, too, that he caught the fist warning signs of a phenomenon that would oppress him until the end of his life, a suspicion that objective truth was 'falling out of the world'. In the future, he believed, history books would simply reflect the prejudices of whomever happened to be in power. [There is no citation for that last sentence; in any case, he already saw in Spain that when the Soviet Union took over the Republican side of the Spanish Revolution, truth was already falling out of the world].
Thank you very much for the "likes." Of course, each of you who hit the like icon are familiar with Orwell's experiences in Spain, and know that he couldn't have written 1984 had he not undergone those experiences. The best source I've found on Orwell's experiences in Spain is a book titled Orwell In Spain: The Full Text of Homage to Catalonia with Associated Articles, Reviews and Letters from The Complete Works of George Orwell (edited by Peter Davison; introduction by Christopher Hitchens) (published in 2010). I wouldn't be surprised if each of you were already familiar with the book.
A personal note:
My father wanted to travel abroad from Poland to do his residency after medical school in 1956. Of course, he couldn't go to Western Europe. So he went to Moscow for a year. This was shortly after the "thaw" began. People in Moscow were still afraid to speak to someone from another country--even an Eastern Bloc country--for fear of being accused of espionage.
In the 1990s, my father discovered that from 1973 (four years after we left the country, when I was four years old) until 1979, he and my late mother were on a list of 34 "registered persons" created by Poland's Ministry of Internal Affairs. That list included some of Poland's best-known dissidents. My mother (in 1968) and her father (in 1956, before de-Stalinization began) took on cases representing dissidents in two of Poland's best known human rights cases before the Solidarity era.
I wanted to see the remnants of the system my family escaped, so I lived in Poland for six months in 1988. At that point, there were very few true believers in Marxist-Leninism left in Poland. The Party's control of the country began unravelling rapidly in April 1989.
I just listened to Christopher Hitchens 11 years ago talking about Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church. This is a Holy War. We have seen enough holy wars to understand understanding is not astrology.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IS_tjw5psUE
In 1992 Canadian Philosopher John Ralston Saul published Voltaire's Bastards (The Dictatorship of Reason in the West).
The attempt to understand Putin through reason is to try to understand insanity.
Listen to Irving Layton in 1960 talking about censorship, poetry and reason to the dumbest of all Canadians the Toronto Intelligentia. Layton talks about Russia, the Soviet Union and the arrogance of the "Reasoned" in a species not inclined to be reasonable.
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1870623763
The arrogance and stupidity of our intellectual elite is nauseating. I know what poetry is and it is hard to argue that Drake isn't among Canada's greatest living poets but they may be right that they own poetry; not the great unwashed for whom it was written.
I think it is time to listen to Jean Redpath sing the songs of Robbie Burns.
Alex Dugin and Stephen Kotkin agree that this is a Holy War.
I haven't a clue who Alex Dugin and Stephen Kotkin are. I think this is a Holy War. I do know who Christopher Hitchens was. I know who Chrystia Freeland is. I know who Pope Francis is and now Poland and Hungary are at war with the Russian Patriarchy as are the other Orthodox Churches. All Putin has left is the GOP and China and America's belief in "reason".
You are somewhat correct in that this is a continuation of an ongoing war between the Latins (Poland/Austria-Hungary/Germany, etc.) and Russia which is not under Rome. Ukraine had been both under the Western Pope and not under it depending on which side has been in charge. How about Russia and the West both leaving Ukraine alone and let them decide for themselves?
Patriarch Kiril is a leftover from the Soviet Russian Orthodox Church. He has never actually believed in the faith, but has used it for political control. This actually happened during the Stalin era as well - Stalin, like Putin was seen as a renewer of the Church in Russia - although in both cases said Church has been tainted with non-Orthodox Christian agendas...agendas that rea those of the banks and not of the actual Russian People. The Russian People are being attacked both by Putin and the West and religion is being used.
The same is happening in Ukraine - where many share the same faith as the Russians but are divided on political lines. The Azov, however tend to be the Polish and Ruthenians that got stuck in Ukraine and are hard core anti-Orthodox, anti Russia. Then there is the problem that Ukraine has long been the locus of the underworld that oligarchs world over are connected wtih.
Ukraine for Ukraine and time for religion and politics to stay separate. I will never accept the Moscow Patriarchate as a representative of my own Russian Orthodox Faith, because given his past, any true bishop would have stepped down due to the sins committed in the Soviet era. Since this did not happen, I do not consider the Moscow Patriarch to have ever repented from the errors of the Stalin era...
Thus, do know that Putin and Kiril do NOT represent Russian Orthodox around the world, and that includes many dissidents within Putin's Russia.
The actual "war," however is the WEF war on all religion, because religion believes in the dignity of the human being as more than something to be manipulated like an OS by big pharma or digital enslavement.
My forefathers fled Ukraine and the Pogroms in the 19th century. My paternal forefathers fled the Inquisition. I grew up in the Quebec of the Catholic church and the Protestant oligarchs. I went to Protestant schools. I am a secular humanist. There is nothing human about holy wars. They are an abomination Putin is not logical , The Krill is not Logical this goes back to when Moscow was a forest and Odessa and Pella were cities about 2500 years ago.
Religion is what Voltaire called absurdity.
Did you know you kind of drool when you talk?
HIs book wasn't intended to predict the future, but it was set in the future and involves a landscape he could not have possibly lived through first hand. Of course, Stalin's purge of the POUM in Spain opened Orwell's eyes. He experienced the fear of knowing he was on Stalin's wanted list as he and his wife hid in abandoned buildings for about five days, before escaping Spain. But he never lived through the dystoptian nightmare he descrcibed. And he took a lot of inspiration from Zamyatin's We (written in the Soviet Union in 1920-1921; Zamyatin was one of the few openly opposed Stalin, but was allowed to emigrate after he resigned from the Writers's Union in 1929 as his colleagues were denouncing him. Like Victor Serge, he complained directly to Stalin of the oppression he was experiencing, and like Serge, he was allowed to leave the country with Gorky's interrcession. Sometimes thugs and mass murdererers do unpredictbable things, such as allowing their bravest crritics to leave the country. Zamyatin was allowed to leave in the early 30s, and Victor Serge was allowed to leave in 1936 after directly criticizing Stalin for his consolidation of power and persecution of his victims, also with Gorky's intercession. Serge also wrote to Stalin directly, complainining that Stalin had made it impossible for him to work. Gorky the lackey put in a word for both few writers of far higher calibre than him while Gorky felt insulated from the purges, although an interntational campaign by writers on Serge's behalf is what resulted in the sole instance of dissident writer being forced out of the country instead of murdered during the Great Terror of the mid-1930s.
Serge's The Case of Comrade Tulayev is a masterpiece in the same vein as Darkness At Noon. Serge finished writing the book in 1942, and he died in 1947. Orwell attempted to help Serge get the book published in the mid-1940s, but Orwell could not get Animal Farm published for roughly a year because of the alliance with Uncle Joe. Serge was apparently the first person to describe the Soviet Union as a "totaitarian" state, in a letter he wrote to friends in Paris on the ever of his arrest in Leningrad in 1933.
I'd say The Case of Comrade Tulayev is as powerful a book as 1984.
Like Orwell, Serge fought as a member of the POUM in Spain. Serge was an early member of the Bolsheviks, but he became openly critical of Stalin by 1925 (or a few years earlier). He was first exiled internally before Stalin put him on a train in 1936 going west.
Although 1984 is a better written book in just about everyone's opinion than We, it is very much like Zamyatin's book. Of course, Orwell wrote that he wanted to write the same kind of book as We. Orwell did a much better job conveying the schizophrenic effect of double-think, and of conveying the fear the main character experienced. Zamyatin's main characIer, D-503, was only discovering that he was a person and not just a scientific worker bee assigned to build a space ship. D-503's range of feeling was not nearly as deep as Winston's. We would have been much more like 1984 had it been written from the perspective I-330, the woman who helped lead the revolt against OneState and it's leader, the Benefactor, and recruited D-503 to the cause.
If Zamyatin hadn't beat Orwell to the theme, I would say that limited aspects of 1984 did turn out to be prophetic. There was no privacy in Zamyatin's OneState or in Orwell's Oceana. There is no privacy in the United States (as you know, the NSA can listen to you using your cell phone while it is off). But the technology to listen to everyone is hardly necessary to create a terror state, and I'm not saying the United States has become even remotely comparable to the Soviet Union under Stalin, or at all comparable to the dystopian novels mentioned in this posting. That would be a prepostrous comparison. On the other hand, the United States has truly horrific nightmares in other countries, such as Guatemala and El Salvador (two of over a dozen such examples), where dissidents or just being the wrong person in the wrong place resulted in unspeakable torture and hacking off of limbs before one's corpse was found on a garbage heap.
Although domestic conditions in the U.S. are not at all comparable to the Soviet Union under Stalin, I see the possibility of things turning in that direction. I'm very fearful when an increasingly large segment of the public advocates for a postmodernist, totalitarian agenda. Humans can be so savage toward each other that it defies belief. Our species will not last, of course. We will destroy ourselves, or die out for other reasons.
Sorry this is so disjointed and for any typos. Time to go to sleep.
He codified it with uncanny accuracy and insight; he wasn't merely a scribe. But, people are thick. Or, as Huxley said, we'd fall because people don't read at all. I watched CNN for the first time in years for its war coverage. Ten minutes in, Jim Acosta used the phenomenon of Russians telling sons and daughters in Ukraine that Russia was not bombing Ukraine-- that this was Western propaganda, to drive home the message that "that's what happens with state-run media." Of course it is, and Acosta himself contributed mightily to the problem. While Goldstein didn't really exist, Orwell did advise that if we keep what makes us human, we defeat them, it. Caring about and wanting to stop the destruction visited on Ukrainians keeps us human. The implication that we shouldn't care, or care too much?? because of not forgetting makes us less so. The U S. never invaded Canada or Mexico.
I meant recently. It could be argued that Mexico had been invading the U.S.
Regarding Canada, I had ancestors in the War of 1812, so I know that too. How shall I phrase this: modern warfare- tanks, missiles, that sort of thing. Someone was always taking something, even before we got here. We were just more efficient and deadly. With humans and wildlife.
Sounds about right.
initially, a sideways response: I spent a number of years as a full time volunteer lobbyist in a liberal state in the west. Unlike most people i read every proposed law, there were hundreds each year. Few were necessary, nearly all were proposed by a special interest group wanting something for their group, money, or legal recognition, or restrictions on behavior or speech or economic activity for other groups and individuals for 'safety" (usually) reasons. After awhile i looked around the country and realized that in every state, each year, several hundred to several thousands bills were being introduced and each one that passed added to the already unbearable load of restrictive laws that affected people in that state.
I came to the conclusion that the ability to legislate should be rarely used and only for very necessary laws. The truth is that nearly every law that is passed disenfranchises someone else in some fashion. (I don't want to talk about what many people would consider necessary law here, murder, for example, not the point.) Merely as one example, laws against personal use and ownership of marijuana. (There are actually hundreds of examples, all relevant.) Because every time a law is passed someone is disenfranchised and that those who are disenfranchised are exquisitely aware that the disenfranchisement is not a matter of public safety but of hidden agendas, they lose respect for law. More crucially, they slowly become aware that to engage in moral behavior MEANS breaking the law and, conversely, to remain a law abiding citizen means becoming immoral. In my frame, being a moral person has little to do with religion (so don't go there) but with acting in accordance with the demands of my character, with being an honorable person, with standing up for certain truths which i have decided over long contemplation that are central to an honorable life. Matt Taibbi reflects most of those truths and the behaviors that come from them in his columns, which is why i subscribe.
The situation I describe above, the separation between moral behavior and legal behavior is becoming more extreme by the day in my country, the US. It is becoming more extreme in many places. It can be seen as well in many meritocratic groups, organizations, and institutions (the CDC for instance, the banking industry, the supreme court, pharmaceutical research, the legacy media, and so on). To remain moral in the sense i am speaking of it here means, as many of us liberals on the left have found, that, slowly, over time, we become aware that we no longer belong among the left and we certainly don't belong among the right.
I have watched in shock and disbelief as liberal friends of decades have ignored as not an issue or supported book burnings (my own work and that of J.K. Rowling for instance), speech prohibitions, imprisonment for life without trial, the invasion of Iraq, the abandonment of the right to bodily autonomy, the abandonment of biological facts and identity (but only when it comes to woman, there are no "people who produce sperm" only "people who menstruate"), even restrictions on art, and so much more including the necessity to actually think, to contemplate the meaning of things, including where their ideas are coming from and the motivations for their actions. And these are people who marched with martin luther king, jr, who served in the peace corps, who went to jail for protesting the vietnam war, who fought for free speech at berkeley in the 60s and 70s. They are the ones i sat up late at night with, drinking or smoking dope, and wondered by so many germans went along with hitler, who said, well, we would not have.
And so, shock and disbelief. It seems to no longer matter what side of the political spectrum one is on, it's crazy everywhere.
I used to hope that i would live long enough to see the next great social upheaval, like the 60s/70s or the 20s/30s. My fantasy of course was that it would be the left that it was oriented around, from which it came. It isn't nor is it from the right. There is some third position that is forming, in difficulty and pain and conflict. Some call it heterodox, whatever it is called it does exist, tiny though it is. and it is growing.
To remain moral now means not only engaging in illegal behavior but also means breaking co-dependent and identity bonds with groups which themselves once reflected back to me self-identity. To remain moral means stepping outside existing forms and systems almost entirely. And it necessitates, as difficult as that is, speaking out.
I think there are a great many people who understand that Matt is talking about here. Most of them have not yet found their voice, they are still struggling with the cognitive dissonance coming from the abandonment of what were long cultural norms by their communities, whatever they might be. The reason why taibbi and greenwald and Freddie deboer and FIRE are important (as only a few examples) is that they are finding the language that encapsulates our distress and as well marks the territory of that third space that is coming into being.
it is a lonely time, but an important one to keep the faith as it were. for this is only the beginning of how bad it is likely to become. thank you matt. as always.
Texas is one of the few states that allows its legislature to meet only every two years and then only for 120 days. Additional legislative rules squeeze the calendar even more. The theory has always been "The less they meet, the less bad laws they can pass." In truth, it has worked to a degree. Thousands of proposed laws each session fail to advance, good and bad. Initiatives seldom can arise and be blessed with legislative action in just one or two sessions. On the other hand, there is always a rush to pass bad laws, especially those that are initiated by special interests, and more especially those with buckets of appreciation. Restricted sessions have worked overall for the state. Less burdensome restrictions, taxes, and retained freedoms are real. Still, there are plenty of Texans ready to amend our Constitution to only allow the legislature to meet for two days, every 120 years.
as someone who was arrested more than once in TX for walking with long hair in the 60s, who knows in detail more than one innocent person executed there, who knows of people imprisoned for decades for possession of a few marijuana seeds, who knows in some depth the current laws being passed there and some which are certain to pass, i consider TX to be a corrupt state whether or not it meets every two years. hardly an example to hold up to the world, esp in light of the rationale behind my post. In fact, the place I learned to hate and forever stand against the abuse of police power was TX, the place i first understood the difference between moral behavior and legal behavior was TX. Nothing since has changed my opinion of the place, it has only become more pronounced. The only state i think more corrupt is LA. a real cesspit of it.
As you acknowledge, your experiences were formative. Texas in the '60's was not the place to be for long-haired Hippies, which is why Janis Joplin and others headed west to a more liberal state. As a long-haired '70's Hippie, I learned many of the same lessons between what was legal and what was moral. I even spent a decade in a western liberal state and learned enough lessons that I have no compunctions to return, from being arrested and jailed for wearing a t-shirt, to seeing the corruption that is so easily purchased and guised in environmental/virtue-signaling/racial or other clothing. Better we take the lessons learned and apply them, something I’ve felt too often too many fail to do, to learn and to develop principles. I agree with your lessons learned and the principles you’ve developed. There are lessons to be learned everywhere. I hope you are in the State of peace that best matches your lessons.
I grew up in Texas, in the sixties. I did protest the Viet Nam war, but for the most part San Antonio seemed unpolitical. However, the Texas of the 1960's and 1970's and 1980's is not the same as the mess it is today. Don't forget about Willie and Waylon and the boys, Jerry Jeff, Ann Richards, Molly Ivins, Charlie Wilson, the Texas Observer, Jim Hightower, and on and on. Even though Janis is from Texas, I don't think of her as a "Texan" as much as I do others. Texas, at that time, seemed to have the best and the worst, and the worst have predominated, I hope temporarily. I haven't lived in Texas for a long time, but I do remember the good parts fondly. The current Texas just breaks my heart.
I moved to Texas four years ago. Our first “same as it ever was” was when the local police office was being purged because of corruption. Coming from Maryland, I just laughed and said didn’t we leave this shit show?
Yeah, how will it be before we see "America: Love it or leave it!" stickers on Teslas?
Thank YOU, Stephen. I get what you wrote 100%.
appreciated, thanks for taking the time to say so
Great comment, thank you.
you're welcome, thank you
"...bubbled with rage a mile wide and a millimeter deep and could forget in an instant passions that may have consumed him or her for years"
There is no more apt description of America today, especially so the Professional Left and its foot soldiers.
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Animal Farm was quite prescient as well
"Brave new world" too. "The road to Wigan Pier" by George Orwell is well worth a read too; he was Anti totalitarian and Anti capitalist and had a plan how to bring the working classes together which would be as presient today as then.
Maybe we should think about the push to legalize drugs and normalize anti-anxiety medicine in a "Brave New World" context.
When YouTube and Twitter started blocking right-wing (and not so right-wing) content in 2020, didn't it occur to anyone that they come after other content they disagreed with, even from the left?
Some of us were even sticking up for Alex Jones because we knew it wouldn't stop there.
I remember the day Alex Jones was simultaneously deplatformed by multiple tech titans. I spoke with my brother that day and he was happy about it and said that Alex Jones deserved it. I said I don't support or oppose Jones. He may have said things that you or I don't think were right or nice, but don't you SEE what just happened. His takedown was COORDINATED! If we just accept this he will be just the first domino to fall. Well, that's exactly what happened.This slide into totalitarianism really has revealed peoples true colors.
You nailed it, and might be interested in my article touching on the topic:
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/were-all-libertarians-now
As long as I can remember, libertarians have been on the fringe of political discourse, focusing on issues nobody seems to care about. In the 1970s they were talking about legalizing gay marriage. In the 1980s instead of “Just Saying No”, they demanded we end the drug war. In 2005 when most of the country was still seeing red from 9/11, libertarians were talking about ending the wars and the dangers of the USA PATRIOT Act. They could often be seen defending ‘scoundrels’, like when Alex Jones was kicked out of polite society, muttering about how it wouldn’t stop there.
But time is a funny thing, and politics are fluid - they’re based on the values of the people at any particular moment. These ‘fringe’ positions of yesterday are today’s mainstream thoughts. The libertarian arguments didn’t change, the politics of the people changed and became more libertarian. In this way, libertarians are often on the fringe because the mainstream hasn’t yet found their way to the libertarian position.
After all, when things are going well, who has time to sit around talking about the dangers of growing government? Why should we spend time thinking about monetary policy? We’ve got real shit to worry about. Just trust that the government is looking out for you.
Many people openly embrace censorship...right up to the moment they themselves are impacted.
"Oh, that's different."
Cornell West is an inspiration. This dyed-in-the-wool, Darwin-thumping atheist would dress up and go to church regularly if he were giving the sermons.
A national treasure!
Thank you for your moral clarity and dedication to the truth. You are apparently the only one on this list that has noticed this crucial part of history (or who thinks it has relevance). West is more than a hack. He is an ideologue, like all the other socialists, who use different criteria for their allies than they do for dissenters. Their followers refuse to notice this. They think history started yesterday. Ignore the evil deeds of those you support and magnify and distort those of your enemy. So it is now with Ukraine and apparently on this list too.
Regime change starts at home.
Which one do you consider Russia more guilty of, and which one the U.S.? Re "mass slaughter of civilians", check out Operation Condor, which Matt mentions. Enforcing the Monroe Doctrine has been far from bloodless.
Imagine not defaulting to whataboutism.
It might focus the mind sharply...like the imminence of the gallows as someone wiser said
I have found you can get through to many people who have become immersed in doublethink. The trick is have a good memory, command of the facts, and apply gentle but constant pressure. You need to be able to make people remember what people said in the past, the reasons they gave for saying it, and be able to compare that with what they are saying now. The good news is I find this has started to become easier than ever. The shameless government and media lying has got to the point where even disengaged and politically apathetic Americans are skeptical about what they see or hear. What you need to do is remind them of why they were skeptical when their skepticism starts to fade and break down the emotional manipulation they are undergoing. The Iraq War and Covid-19 are very effective in this regard. Things may seem worse than ever (and they might be), but we also have an opportunity we cannot miss.
Since 2020, the Dems have been ridiculing anyone who publicly discusses or asks questions inferring the presidential election was not on the up and up. Why it was the safest election ever, they exclaim. Time even had a cover story up immediately after the election telling us all everything done to insure the most secure election ever.
These were the same people who had a complete meltdown when Trump won the presidency by winning the electoral college. Immediately the caterwauling began that the Russians stole the election for Trump. The Dems also tried to get states’ electors to change their vote based on the fact Clinton won the popular vote. They know that is not how the presidential election works, but that didn’t stop them from trying to overturn the results.
Interesting how this fell down the memory hole after the 2020 election.
I like your last sentence stating that Dems are idiots! Thank you!
In fact Hillary Clinton claimed she won in 2016 for three years, blaming the Russians for getting votes her President Trump.
And there is ample evidence of voter fraud in 2020. The latest data from Wisconsin show that the 91 nursing homes checked each had at least 95% voter turnout, and many 100%, when relatives of many residents testified that their parent or aunt or uncle was incapable of voting, had not voted in more than 10 years, and could not even recognize their own children, et al.
We know that there was massive fraud in Fulton County, Georgia. The person in charge of the vote collecting and tallying stated publicly (for example, on CBS News) that the system would shut down at 1030pm on election day, and reopen the following morning. Surveillance cameras show people coming in at 1130pm, pulling boxes from under tables and opening them and putting the ballots through the vote counting machines.
In Detroit, Republican poll watchers were not allowed in the vote tallying rooms, which the law says they must be allowed to do.
Etc., etc., etc.
And the biggest question is "How did Biden, who everyone agrees was an awful candidate (as was his running mate, Harris), who was not allowed out of his home for most of the campaign, win 81 million votes?"
"How did Biden...win 81 million votes?"
Xerox.
"...The latest data from Wisconsin"...
..."The person in charge of the vote collecting and tallying..."
who "everyone" agrees..."
"Etc., etc., etc."
Mr. Rfhirsch: Back to your gaming console...
Another thing Democrats and co. did in 2016: poison U.S.-Russia relations via the Russiagate absurdities, making de-escalatory diplomacy politically impossible in the years following, resulting in the present war in Ukraine (it might have been averted with the slightest of concessions!), which might yet go nuclear owing to the continued political impossibility to undertake the slightest diplomacy, all resulting from those reckless actions post-2016. Frankly I wish they would have just tried to overturn the election.
That's some flight of fancy you just took...
The Dems also did not just express dissatisfaction with the Electoral College. They were contacting electors asking them to change votes to Clinton in states won by Trump:
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/democrats-electoral-college-faithless-trump-231731
Interesting that Politico says it was Sanders supporters behind the effort; as I recall it came from Clinton supporters also.
Nonetheless, I would consider their efforts an attempt to overturn the results.
I will grant they were more civilized about it. No one scaling the walls of the Capitol, breaking windows, breaking into offices and pooping on desks. And no Q CT at that point so no Q shaman.
I would consider claims that Russia interfered with the election not that dissimilar with the 2020 claims of rigging, which is interference.
Both times the losing party cried foul and challenged the results. Losing gracefully has become a lost art, it seems.
“Undue influence” and “outright fraudulent” is a very fine line to draw. Too fine, I think.
The only false equivalence is between your ears...
Speaking of idiots, what’s your take on their “fortifying” efforts?
Unfortunately I disagree. People are so invested in their group think that any heresy is immediately tuned out. Once you challenge someone core beliefs their human reaction to not hear it is too great. Even though I am a devout believer I still understand the contradiction of belief, but most people can not do that. Our thought tribalism is so ingrained now in our collective psyche that to waver from the truth causes mental shit down.
I don’t agree with cutting off news from either side. If we are not able to talk to each other through news we will cause more lasting harm. Unfortunately we may have already crossed that Rubicon and there is not going back
I'm talking about normal people in the real world, not twitter obsessed dipshits.
I admire your optimism Matt, but respectfully disagree. The telescreen, running on fear, lack of meaning & isolation are insanely potent tools for mass control. Obviously I’m plagiarizing Mathias Desmet—whom I greatly admire. He shares your belief, that we can move the gulled, but I’m just stupefied by the extent of hypnosis of otherwise intelligent people who should know better.
Evolution hates prolonged periods of peace and development, it needs strife and warfare to function properly.
I'd certainly like to try to have a long enough period of peace and development to find out if that is true...
Tyrants need strife and warfare to justify their theft.
If you're "talking about normal people in the real world" then you're excluding 95% of the commenters here also.
Meant “shut” but was on my phone but still funny :)
It helps to start with a contentious issue that isn’t the matter at hand. Believe it or not International Women’s Day has sparked some conversations about how the truth is often the exact opposite of what we’re told.
Do you remember the movie War Games? Matthew Broderick, 1980s? Before the AI that was about to launch WWIII could learn that it was impossible to win a nuclear war, first it had to learn that unwinnable games existed. So they taught it Tic Tac Toe. Find each person’s Tic Tac Toe and you’re halfway there.
You're right! Know what you're talking about, because they don't. Over time, it works.
Patience is so very underrated.
I agree. It's tough though. I have been doing this for years. You have to go in tiny baby steps otherwise they will shoot the messenger (usually with words, sometimes physical violoence).
Really excellent points!
It’s not understatement to say I despise my government and it despises me. It seeks to control me through a hatred and fear of the other, but with each successive moral panic, I only loathe the creators of the crisis more.
I can only hope that they don’t stumble their way into Armageddon while trying to manipulate us into submission.
Armageddon might be the only reset I could get behind.
I would say that I despise what they do, and what they do in our name. If we have hateful feelings in our own hearts, and I know it is hard not to in these days, we will stoop to the same misdeed they are doing if we were to be the ones in power. I love these people the way I love a child gone astray. I do not like their actions, but these are the actions of an immature humanity that is still trying to make adult life like the schoolyard. This is largely a result of the educational systems foisted on humanity for the past century or so. We no longer no how to think, and this includes the so-called experts. They are children playing King of the Hill.
I think he was prescient in regards to the development of a culture of children who wish to be led by a parent in the form of government. We believe that our elections matter, but the reality is that we have a nomenklatura who set an Overton Window and harshly punish any politician who steps outside of it. The purpose of the modern politician is to provide a fiction that the people get a say in their rule.
All of government distracts us with collective outrage and frivolous pleasures. We exist somewhere between Orwell and Huxley, oscillating between our two minutes of hate and a soma-induced stupor, while they do what they will without any accountability. How else can you explain the massive disconnect between the incredible, frothing rage over Ukraine and the nonplussed reaction to our own actions in Yemen, which by any account are far more bloody and inhumane?
Brad Pitt channels Tocqueville: "It's just a business."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln1XCaUIjsE&t=31s
Thank you for making it clear that the lives of some are more expendable than others by virtue of where they live or their utility to our national "interests."
Goddammit this is important, will you please unpaywall it?! You will get many more subscribers from doing so than from a few of us screaming SUBSCRIBE TO TABBI!!! and posting snippets and screenshots.
"please unpaywall it! You will get many more subscribers from doing so"
Not sure this is true. As personal evidence, the most recent Substack I subscribed to (The Upheaval by N.S. Lyons, highly recommended), I did so because I finished the teaser paragraphs and thought, "Damnit, I _have_ to read the rest of this!" No idea how many teaser paragraphs Taibbi uses, but I'll bet it's the optimal number.
With that said, I do want an open link I can text to certain family/friends and just say, "Please read this."
I subscribe to the Upheaval.
Hmm, you've pricked up my ears. I haven't read enough yet to have encountered that.
Thanks!
You gotta be fucking kidding me!!! Astonishing.
One of the most salient points in this article is that our current collective state of mind exposes the spiritual rot of what used to be called "Christian Civilization." For those who have been paying attention, the hypocrisy of our current position on the Russian "incursion" into the Ukraine is very apparent. I never thought the day would come when I agreed with Cornel West, but I admit that one of my first thoughts when Russia invaded was, "they saw what we did inn a Iraq and thought, 'why can't we make a pre-emptive strike?'" We need to take a long look in the mirror. The U.S.A. is in grave need of massive reform and spiritual reawakening. A house-cleaning is in order. The war in the Ukraine is tragic and dangerous, but what's happening in the west is even more frightening, and its leading us into a vary dark place. We're in a perilous moment.
Absolutely agree with your general point, SoCalGuy. I've come to the general conclusion, a majority in US feel when "we" do the same 'bad' thing as other countries, its not so bad. However, when OTHER countries do the same 'bad' thing as us, it is much worse. Getting the message that "a bad thing is a bad thing" into majority of public's consciousness perhaps no longer possible?
I think we've justified a lot of things by thinking, "They're doing it for US.. our safety, our material gain, our freedom.." but now many of us are feeling a creeping apprehension.. that perhaps the CIA, FBI, the entire government security apparatus and our leadership have been corrupted to the point where they're not serving US.. they're serving themselves, and their globalist clients. Now we're realizing that "bad things" are always bad things, and we need a fresh look at the things that are done in our name. If it's not too late.
It was interesting that, unlike what happened in the buildup to Iraq, no one even bothered to assess the Ukraine situation in light of the Just War doctrine. Because we might not like the answer.
It's because George W. referred to the U.N. as "irrelevant" before deciding to go ahead and initiate an illegal invasion of U.S. military force upon a sovereign nation despite the fact that we had not been attacked by that nation, nor had we been granted legal permission within the U.N. security counsel to launch such an invasion Diplomatically, this comment and resulting action set us back decades. We may all, in fact, end up paying the ultimate price for it--sooner than we may think.
The problem is that narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths (who lead our nations) cannot see the comparison because they have no empathy or care for the actual people. Nothing will make them see, other than to learn to play the "game" in a way the are not expecting. There was a far better way for Putin to "win" but he failed to see and fell into the trap set for him. Again, I think they are all playing this to engineer more fear and the need to restrict our movements and speech and freedoms.
Most of the footage I've seen from both "sides'" looks totally fake in so many ways. No doubt that people are suffering, but I don't think we are seeing reality, but actors and fancy things that we can do do with digital editing. This leads us to the need to state that a digital future is not an honest future.
No amount of digital verification will stop the actual elite criminals. They always get around it - but it will harm us. What is digital can certainly be faked, perhaps more than physical evidence. The 4th Industrial Revolution, by making a totally digital world thus becomes able to disprove any past history other than what they want us to know. They are literally erasing our humanity and this is a crime against humanity. Digital has its uses and we should welcome such things, but never, never must it rule us - for it knows only strict justice and lacks human or Godly mercy. It is a half image of reality...something some religions call "the devil."
Once again at the end of days the trees of Eden are before us. The Tree of Knowledge is all that we have done in history and the knowledge of who is at the top and will rule in such a world...This Tree leads to the WEF which eventually leads to total collapse because it is still founded on a wrong principal. It lacks the knowledge of rhythm of life cycles.
There is another tree called the Tree of Life, that we can embrace (it is a new way of learning to see beyond either/or binaries) that will teach us how to use the accumulated knowledge of our civilized world in ways that will benefit all rather than the self-proclaimed few. Religion has long attempted to explain this Tree of Life, but few can listen before taking back to the ways of the powerful elites...and thus can never overcome.
Choose Wisely.
Because of the "net" people can now clearly see the machinations of tyrannical totalitarian finance and the institutions that serve it. Their implementation of a worldwide psychological operation to convince us that we are powerless is in our faces. We're not.
It's a war on Consciousness. The evolutionary potential of Citizen powered change toward the application of freedom based democratic principals afforded by the "net" stands in direct opposition to the greed driven actions of totalitarian finance. It's that simple. The monsters are being driven out of the shadows and into the light. That puts us all in peril.
After the U.S. announced sanctions on Russia, we've watched as most powerful companies deployed their own sanctions packages. From restaurants to tech companies, they've cut off their businesses from the Russian people.
I'm a bit unnerved that the corporate world was so effective at this at a time when no one feels the need to question whether they're right to do so. I fear that lessons are being learned right now that will soon be turned on dissenters at home in the US.
"I fear that lessons are being learned right now that will soon be turned on dissenters at home in the US."
That could never happen here...it's not happening...it's not that bad...it's bad but it's not happening that much...it's good that it's happening.
This is what they are doing - flexing their power to let us know that we are helpless before them. The key is to stop relying solely on digital. Digital is a tool, let it not become our prison.
I'm convinced they all take their marching orders from Blackrock now. Blackrock, of course, answers to its masters in Davos.
I love this post, Matt. Let’s remember the Bay of Pigs. How horrified were we to find Russian weapons near our border in Cuba? If Ukraine joins NATO, we can put our weapons right next to Russia’s border. Putin is justified in not ever wanting that to happen. Biden did not even consider Russia’s defensive position in this and he did not negotiate in good faith. Speaking of the spooks, when Kennedy was trying to get leverage against Kruschev, he told his military spooks that he would threaten to put missles in Turkey. After an awkward silence the spooks said “We already have them there.” We have never honored Russia’s preference for spheres of influence. Picking off satellite countries and adding them into NATO has perhaps not been so wise if it is peace we are seeking.
Big Brother is here, you subtly pointed that out by saying spies are popular again. Some of us haven't forgotten that we cant do anything online without the NSA reading or watching, or say certain opinions without being considered a domestic terrorist. We haven't fallen for the warmongering bullshit, and won't fight until the fight is at home.