Bear with me a bit while I provide a bit of a background to my relationship with the NYT. I grew up in the 1980s-1990s the offspring of an academic family (father a professor at a prominent university, mother a teacher). Naturally, as a center-left academic family, the NYT featured prominently on our breakfast table. I used to read the paper extensively, browsing the multiple sections in the Sunday Times. "Everyone" knew the NYT was the best paper in America, it spoke intelligently to an intelligent audience. While indisputably a liberal paper, you could still enjoy columnists with differing views and the journalism itself was top notch, and the various sections (Science, Architecture/Art, Food, Travel) were largely free of moralizing opinions.
Then, around 2000, while in college, I noticed something started to change at the NYT. It wasn't a sudden change but a gradual change in the tone of the paper's articles and columnists. While my parents were your liberal academics, my larger family came from a variety of places, small town rural America, Reagan/Bush suburban professionals, working class union Democrats and I like to think close exposure with this range of Americans kept me open minded and realistic about everyday America. And while we could disagree over policy, no one ever questioned that we were all Americans and no one questioned the validity of anyone else's life experience.
Except the NYT. Sometime around 2000, I started realizing the Times was treating the rest of America outside the liberal Upper West Side echelons (and those elsewhere who allied with that mindset) as somewhat odd and foreign. It was as if the Times' journalists were viewing the rest of America, and actually, even large parts of NYC itself (the old immigrant boroughs, Long Island and so forth) the way a biologist analyses strange new bacteria through a microscope lens. And it became clearer that the NYT's journalists and columnists didn't see themselves as the same Americans as the rest of the Americans they periodically wrote about. When they wrote about various American subjects, it was written less about fellow countrymen, but a different people entirely. The irony was that the NYT itself is the weird little bacteria in the middle of America but they took the opposite attitude!
When I realized that, it ended my love affair with the NYT. It wasn't overnight, it was a gradual process that took some years. Then, of course, we have seen in the last four years the NYT frankly and openly admit it no longer regards objectivity a principle in journalism. This disease, the isolation of elite journalism from everyday America, has spread quickly and extensively to all other major mainstream papers and TV/internet news. Matt has already covered this with his echo chamber article.
An aristocracy, as the elite Americans have become, is not inherently a bad thing. There has always been an element of an aristocracy in America, a consensus among the nation's elite. The problem emerges when the aristocracy is not just out of touch with the broader swathes of its fellow population, but disdainful of the same people. The men and women who control most of the nation's media and their allies in social media and higher education and increasingly now in the corporate world are extremely disdainful of much of America, disparage their way of thinking without even bothering to try to understand it, and use their institutions to be openly hostile. I don't think the American upper classes has ever been so openly hateful of half their countrymen.
A major reason behind MAGAism and the 74 million Trump voters is that they clearly saw this hatred towards them and this widespread attempt to shunt this America out of sight.
This has been my exact experience with the NYT, though I'm a bit younger so I grew up with it in the 90s and 2000s and subscribed on my own when I went to college in 2010. I was a devoted reader all through college and young adulthood - I knew it was a liberal paper but I agreed with a lot of their opinions and reading what everyone knew to be the best paper in America (lol) made me feel grown up and informed. I'm from NYC so it was also my "local paper."
Around 2015 I started to notice the wheels coming off with the breathless and deadly serious coverage of Trump, who looked like an obvious troll/comedian to me from the start. The fawning portrayal of the Amazon headquarters destined for Long Island City was the last straw - I lived five minutes away from LIC and I could see with my own two eyes that their portrayal of the neighborhood as some blighted wasteland desperately in need of a Silicon Valley takeover was complete hogwash. Why should one of the largest companies in the world need a massive tax subsidy to open an office in an already popular neighborhood in the largest city in America? Every company has an office in New York City. Many of them have offices in Long Island City, e.g. Citi Bank. The idea that we, NYC taxpayers, should be subsidizing the richest man in the world in order to "convince" him to open a new office in the freaking BUSINESS CAPITAL OF AMERICA completely broke my brain. Meanwhile my precious NYT seemed to be drooling over Bezos with zero critical reflection. I think my disillusionment with the NYT had been percolating for years but for some reason this story put me over the edge and suddenly the entire paper looked completely ridiculous. I began to see how little their "Bobos-in-paradise" worldview resembled what I knew from, like you, having friends and family outside upper middle class coastal academic enclaves.
Question: what paper do you read now? I have been reading the Wall Street Journal recently, though their opinion section makes my eyes roll out of my head. I think their news reporting is still decent but it's so hard to tell these days. I wish there was a paper without any opinion section at all.
I read dozens of news sites, everything from NYT to QAnon. I find it interesting to see how people think - or that they don't think at all. I don't fear ideas different than mine will somehow infect me, and find it weird so many of my left friends do. I especially find it weird when leftist young people say they just won't read something because it's too dangerous. My conclusion is *they* are terrified they'll lose their leftist faith. And honestly, for NYT to say the QAnon is dangerous conspiracy theory is just hilarious.
As Jimmy Dore has pointed out, Russiagate is the liberal Qanon. Most liberals are just to thick to realize it. What the Trump presidency has taught me is liberals, despite their college educations, are every bit as butt ignorant as the caricature they use to mock rural right wingers.
And, for a group that seems obsessed with their own feelings, they seem to lack a remarkable amount of self awareness. In other words, liberals appear to be dumb enough to wholeheartedly believe their own bullshit.
Hmmm...I think it's more complex than just saying Qanon is the Russiagate of the right. I like Jimmy Dore and always agree with him, but I think a better comparison would be that "stop the steal" is the Russiagate of the right/Trump world. Both are conspiracy theories with the goal of de-legitimizing legitimate election victories. Russiagate for the Hillary crowd, "stop the steal" for Trump supporters.
Qanon tries to be all encompassing, so it approaches cult status as it represents a worldview rather than a single conspiracy. What exactly did Dore say about Russiagate being the liberal Qanon? I can't believe someone as smart as him would simplify it so much.
I think Dore was just responding to Clinton & Pelosi's insane idea to convene a 911 style commission to investigate those Trump/Russia ties that they couldn't prove with 4 years of investigations while Trump was in office. Pelosi, on Hillary's podcast, said "With Trump, all roads lead to Putin." They're both convinced that the Capitol protesters were doing Putin's bidding, etc.
I think his point was that the Dems, along with their media propaganda wing, are the biggest pushers of conspiracy theories out there yet their cult of partisan true believers are completely unaware that they're being sold inventions.
It's because these people are dumb. Same as the Qanon believers. My sister buys into a lot of this garbage (the lefty crap, not Qanon) and I know her IQ is slightly above 100. That means that objectively, half the country is even dumber than that. It's enough to not just make me want a drink, but want a nice juicy shot of heroin. The good news, sort of, is bread and circuses.
That said, I do believe that Trump was and is corrupt AF, but other than the nature of his non-political businesses (i.e., not a Clinton Foundation or the like) which he definitely benefited during his presidency, he's no different from any of the others. His business dealings and frank nature just took the mask off where a polite guy like Obama could hold the act down long enough and wait to profit immensely AFTER he left office.
Thanks. They're insane. The MSM managed to infect my dad with the whole Russiagate BS and it's the same as Q. Nothing will convince him otherwise. I'm just glad that it was only a single "incident" or election year and that they've finally shut up about it (for now).
Oh boy ... the election. Yes, it was stolen. Any smart person who examined the evidence knows it but Americans don't want to think about how bad it's gotten. They prefer Left vs Right rather than Totalitarian vs Individual Rights. Why has Orwell's 1984 stayed in the top 5 bestselling books for months on Amazon? Okay, you are all a wonderfully smart bunch and of course anyone who reads Matt or Glenn Greenwald would be but I need to grill my husband some Argentinian style steaks with chimichurri sauce and duck fat potatoes. Looking forward to seeing you on Matt's next.
This election was no more marred with fraud than any other election. The dead have been voting in elections for as long as I have been alive, and probably many times that 50 years. That said, this election the fraud probably made a difference. It deserves investigation and until it is properly investigated, people are tuning out of the system. It's a bad state of affairs for a democracy. As long as people buy into "my vote makes a difference" you are doing ok. After that is gone, it's just oppression, and we all know where that leads.
"And honestly, for NYT to say the QAnon is dangerous conspiracy theory is just hilarious."
Granting credibility to QAnon is a litmus test for gullibility: if someone takes QAnon seriously, they're gullible. QAnon presents a classic non-falsifiability trap, and practically mandates that its adherents draw on various uncriticalassumptions and factoids to fill in the voluminous blanks between its threadbare factual disclosures and murky hints and insinuations. It's a model of how to yank people's chains.
And to the extent that it's taken seriously and obtains power and influence, QAnon is potentially dangerous. Although my best guess is that the election of Marjorie Greer and Lauren Boebert marks the high tide of the QAnon "movement", which deserves to fade away into well-deserved ignominy.
I don't take QAnon or NYT seriously. I fail to see, though, how NYT isn't more dangerous, given their massive peddling of Russiagate and suppression of the Hunter Biden.
There’s a Reddit group called Q Anon Casualties. It’s a support group for people whose marriages, families and friendships have been annihilated by this collective psychosis. Obviously Russiagate is damaging, all these variants of “nepravda” are cancerous. But the Q thing has a death cult quality that exceeds the realms of state propaganda and shitty journalism. I recommend you check out the Reddit group to observe the scope of madness. It’s not just about Trump. The “crisis of meaning” has reached a fever pitch.
Thank you for the Reddit suggestion. Interesting. One thing that struck me is most don't seem to take any personal responsibility. They just blame QAnon. But at least the ex QAnons know they're casualties. I know a number of Trump haters who are just as psychotic and have wrecked just as much as the ex QAnons at least admit to. The Trump haters just don't realize it. It's Trump's fault. They keep talking about how Trump supporters need to be reprogrammed. They should all look in the mirror, get themselves reprogrammed, stop watching CNN, reading NYT and get Trump out of their heads and move on. If an ex-President is still the biggest thing in your life you need help.
Ooh! Thanks I’m definitely checking it out. I think the diff between Russiagate & Qanon is that R-gate had the potential to get us into another cold war or arms race with Russia. It was taken serious by the letters agencies & powerful people. Q only effects individuals and to the effect it affects real world events like 1/6. Im not sure that was primarily Q driven so much as it was by Trump and his band of crooks. The greatest danger in all that seemed to be the Lin Wood types who had massive followings and was affecting voters and stirring people up with Stop The Steal.
Qanon is an influencer status-seeking racket that is based on the $ generated via clicks, views, likes, shares, follows and even merchandise. The whole thing is a scam which should have stayed what it is: entertainment. Problem is too many Americans (and others) are so gullible and looking for a unifying "theory of everything" to explain the evils they perceive in the world and Q is a good distraction from the policies of the corporate Democrats (who work for the same economic interests as the right) and the Republicans. Both constitute two different segments of The War Party.
There seems to be different levels of Qanon, from political analysis(which can be pretty keen) to the inner circle which is totally weird (JFK Jr. is still alive, lizard people, political clones etc.). It was never right wing in the traditional sense( American exceptionalism)but reverted back to a certain protectionism which is attractive to many on the disaffected left who are tired of the pseudo-left politics of corporate Democrats. In the end Qanon at least gave a platform to the dissident left that was often banned on YouTube where anyone that questions the motives or wisdom of Dr. Fauci or the Gates Foundation has been systematically censored.
I will preface this by saying that I am not deeply into QAnon and speak from a position of relative ignorance,
but it intrigues me that it seems to pit the military/military intelligence against civilian intelligence/The Establishment. Mike Flynn is a martyr figure. DIA vs. CIA.
A more cynical reading of QAnon is that its a public Team Red reaction to CRT/BLM... if all conservatives can be labeled "Racists" then all liberals can be labled "Pedophiles." After all, what would be worse in 2021: being compared to David Duke or Jeffrey Epstein?
The question becomes, which faction believes its conspiracy theory more than the other?
Intriguing theory. CRT is institutionalized and likely more harmful in the long run. If Q blames elites for all ills CRT blames White people for all ills.
I’ve listened to Marjorie Taylor Green and she is a fool. The Republicans need to shut her up, censor her or something. Not sure. They need to do some house cleaning like W.F. Buckley did with the John Birchers in the 60’s.
I agree with all of that. I like reading things that piss me off or that people tell me are bad and scary. I don't know how people got this idea that simply being exposed to a concept means you will suddenly start believing it. It's really bizarre. I just don't want to spend all my free time reading news sites so I would like to find a decent source for dry, basic news coverage that I can check when I want an idea of what's going on in the world without sifting through too much ideology, you know?
>>I don't know how people got this idea that simply being exposed to a concept means you will suddenly start believing it. It's really bizarre.
I was raised in a fundamentalist church, believing God created the universe in 6 days and all that. So I can relate to people who believe exposure to certain facts and opinions can be "dangerous"--that's precisely how I used to feel when exposed to texts about evolution.
Polly is exactly right. Leftism has morphed into a religion, a carefully constructed one that cannot withstand exposure to critical arguments.
Perhaps the so-called "leftism" of certain identity politics activists in liberal arts college. But true leftism has mostly been crushed by the corporate right and center, both of which continue to re-define leftism to suit their own political and economic agendas. Try starting a labor union at a "liberal" corporation like Alphabet or Apple. LOL, THAT is leftism.
Alphabet workers did it but since they can't actually conceive of an adversarial relationship between labor and capital it's essentially a social justice advocacy club. Check out this mission statement, it's absolutely wild from a "labor" perspective: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statement/
This is why leftist politics is currently on life support. All of the people in this union genuinely believe they're doing leftism right now when they're actually begging capital to make itself look even friendlier to their cultural ideology while asking for literally no material concessions. This is a group of people who think labor organizing is for ending identity-based "oppression" in the workplace and for winning the right to be a conscientious objector to work projects. They think their interests and their employer's can perfectly align if they just try a little harder to make the case for "not being evil." The idea that their employer's interests and their own cannot possibly be aligned because one represents capital and the other labor would break their brains.
No, leftism and righism have morphed into centrism. What you call left are Reagan democrats and corporate 3rd way dems who bought into the whole empire trip that the neocons were selling.
Okay. I invite you to consider that Christianity has hundreds, maybe thousands, of denominations; and many of them believe they alone know the truth. "No true Christian" believes dancing is okay, and so on.
I know the woke = religion analogy has been done to death at this point but that's because it rings so true. I wasn't raised religious, in fact my parents came from two very different religious backgrounds that essentially negated each other, so I've never understood the religious mindset on a personal level. I guess that's why I have so much trouble understanding the people on the left who suddenly think this way about conservative or even non-mainstream leftist news. It just doesn't make any sense.
Woke thought gained traction on social media, a fundamentally toxic medium. It used to be the vanguard left held these discussions in the rarefied air of academia, and there was a longer, more critical process. The cultural combinations of 24/7 news, personal branding and instantaneous expectations accelerated the process of identity politics discourse to an unnatural state in which you’re expected to know and properly use a vernacular that’s still developing! My point is that the ideologies of people aren’t inherently bad, but the medium we use (the internet) to communicate those ideologies and hold each other accountable for ideological adherence is breaking our brains. The internet has made discourse chaotic, aggressive and—most of all—performative. The way to get attention on Twitter is to be bold and narrow minded, to make grand proclamations. Nuance is dead. Imagine being exposed to thousands of Twitter threads 30 years ago. You’d think the world of the future was a hellacious nightmare in which everyone is a paranoid psychotic.
Good luck with finding when, where, what, why, who journalism now in a national paper. That's why I enjoy reading local news - not just mine but around the country. We recently had a local newspaper story about a French Bulldog falling over a neighborhood cliff, getting rescued by a Fireman and it was just great. What happened. When it happened. Where it happened. Why it happened (Frenchie got loose from leash). Who (photo of Frenchie in arms of Fireman).
Yes, that is my favorite type of news. Because it's about local, real people. Not abstract concepts far away. We are missing that connection in the major news sources these days.
Realclearpolitics.com, it features titles and links to articles from the left to the right. You’ll get all kinds of news from Slate & the NYTs to the National Review and the NY Post. I’ve seen substack links to Taibbi’s & GG articles, all kinds of views featured there. Unfortunately, you can’t get the news from 1 trusted source anymore. You have to read a rang of sources to get to a proximate of truth(ish) news. It’s what we have to deal with in a biased, divided world.
«I just don't want to spend all my free time reading news sites so I would like to find a decent source for dry, basic news coverage that I can check when I want an idea of what's going on in the world without sifting through too much ideology, you know?»
Are you willing to pay $10,000 a year for that? Or at least $1,000 a year?
Or do you want for people to spend a lot of time and risk a lot investigating issues and writing informative, unbiased briefs on them for you, all paid for by themselves, with no advantage for them?
Of course I would be willing to pay for it! $10,000 a year seems ridiculous but I would pay at least a few hundred for it. I already pay for one paper for around $400 a year and I subscribe to plenty of substacks and patreons. I pay for email services because I don't want Google invading my privacy. Good information & digital services are worth every penny.
After doing research for my book on QAnon, I believe QAnon is dangerous. While the criminality is overstated by msm, the violence is real (kidnapping to murder, based on people buying into Q conspiracies). There are other real dangers in that the movement is hateful in its rhetoric, and fueled by irrationality. Its core theory about HRC and the satanic cabal who kidnap, torture, rape, kill and eat children is one huge lie, one that uses real pedophilia for support. The QAnon leaders offer theories without evidence, have no epistemic humility, and present a binary fueled image of Trump (the messiah) against the barbarians who oppose Trump. Anyway, check out my book: The QAnon Deception. (And, yes, I do know that QAnon has some valid points but these genuine points come from other sources that QAnon duplicates). James Beverley, Professor
Professor, I don't think there are many people here who believe Qanon is real. It's nice that you wrote a book debunking it but you must know that you'll be preaching to the converted? True believers will do what, in my experience, they always do which is accuse you of being in on it or of being an academic running interference for it.
Qanon, with its ideas of satanic pedophiles, while a right wing conspiracy now, used to be, during the Bush years, a left wing fueled conspiracy theory. It was driven by accusations around a man named Larry King and the Franklin Savings & Loan scandal. King allegedly pimped out young boys from Boys Town to elites in the Republican Party.
This was also tied into stories of alleged abuse that occurred in day cares that emerged in the 80s which was, if you remember, a huge scandal for a while. People did real jail time based on quite insane allegations. The only one that comes to mind involves the Pope flying in on a hot air balloon & spiriting young children away to a church for satanic ritual rape.
In my estimation, the difference between the left & right wing theories hinges on that idea of Satan. The right wing version emphasizes the Satan part of it, inferring that elites are literally worshipping Satan. The left wing side emphasized the ritual abuse part, with Satan being an extraneous detail. The ritual abuse was used as a tool to shatter a child's personality for purposes of mind control. This then led to MKultra, something called Project Monarch and other projects that I no longer remember.
Other than extraneous details, like placing Trump as an avenging patriot, the stories are incredibly similar because, in my estimation, conspiracy theories never really die they just change sides depending on who holds the reins of power.
You also must understand that what has emerged around the arrest & subsequent suicide/murder of Jeffrey Epstein was like a jet of kerosene on the satanic pedophile conspiracy fire. The number of elite movers & shakers, Trump included, who were cozy with Epstein is quite phenomenal. The accusations, some quite credible, that Epstein was an intelligence asset doing the government's good work, are hard to ignore.
The fact that Epstein allegedly recorded every bit of sexual activity on his island, yet not one recording has emerged is, again, more fuel for the fire.
To say that there's no evidence is a bit disingenuous. There's tons of "evidence," it's just that the evidence is open to interpretation. And, in some cases like Epstein's first arrest, is quashed by powerful people in powerful places.
You also must understand that we live in a system now where corporate & state power are so inextricably intertwined that they're almost indistinguishable. The news media is comprised, primarily, of two opposing camps who spin their "news" based more on their audience demographic than on what's true. In other words they feed us a nonstop stream of biased bullshit.
This "truth void" leaves a nice big blank space for people to fill in as they see fit. Some people have found the Qanon crayon to be to their liking.
Hopefully you've covered all of this in your book. If, on the other hand, you've kept it focused on Qanon & the right wing, I have to say that your book will be pretty useless. I could lie and say I'll read it but I probably won't. While the conspiracy motivations might be faulty, many of the stories about kidnapped & raped children are all too real. Quite frankly prof, I don't have the stomach for it any more.
Finally, you must realize that Qanon is being used as food for the Neo-liberal wing's new found censorship monkey. I have to tell you prof, there are only two sides to the censorship debate. You're either for free speech or you're against it. If you're against it you're a fascist, plain & simple. When you say that Qanon has led to real world murder I'd say that the numbers are probably quite negligible when placed against the murders that resulted from government approved conspiracy theories like "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." Yet no one wants to censor the government and its war machine.
Indeed. I was trying to research about Qanon because, oddly enough, everyone I know who voted for Trump has never heard of Qanon. They have no clue what it is. And yet, I’ve heard the movement linked to Trump voters. I found a podcast that features Travis View who researches conspiracy theories and he would fly out and go to qanon rally’s. He tape recorded them and interviewed people there. The speakers at these rally’s sound crazy and insane. Most of them came off as new age types and not at all evangelical christians (which is how msm describes them). There is one guy who thinks he’s fathered children with aliens and talks about being a star child!!!?! A christian person would view that as satanic. So, I have no clue why they’re making Q people out to be average Trump supporting Christians. It is a cult and the people are crazy but I don’t think there’s very many of them nor do I think it’s the average Trump voter.
I think that's because Qanon is more like a rallying point for differing conspiracy views rather than an overarching philosophy.
My problem with how Qanon is framed in the media is that it's being used as a rallying point for liberal censorship boffins.
In my experience censorship boffins usually can't find their butt crack with both hands & a flashlight.
For example, in Britain, there was a censorship boffin named Mary Whitehouse. She was instrumental in the creation of Britain's video nasties list that banned, primarily, low budget horror films under the grounds that they were harmful to children & British society. She also campaigned against imagery & themes in British TV shows such as Dr. Who that she found harmful for the same reasons.
Ironically though, the one TV personality she felt was just wonderful & beyond reproach was Jimmy Saville who we now know was one of Britain's biggest pervert pedophiles.
As a Trump voter, I would say you are correct on both points. I've said this before: when Mike Pence was asked about Qanon and he claimed to not know what it was, he wasn't lying. Qanon's influence has been grossly inflated by the media looking for more villains. Conversely, Qanon's popularity has also been fueled by the same media coverage. The media has the same effect on mass shootings, and they happily profit from it.
I think you know exactly why the media is making Qanon out to be average Trump supporting Christians.
The QAnon movement is large so I believe it includes some evangelicals. Dave Hayes (aka the Praying Medic) is a leader in that camp. Yes, there are really wild views connected to Q as well.
1. Yes, I realize my critique of QAnon will not go over well with most followers. I was on a radio show the end of December and got the standard ad hominem attacks from Q believers.
2. I agree with your points about the symmetry between left- and right-wing conspiracies. And I do remember the Satanic panic of the 80s.
3. I realize the power of the Epstein scandal and comment on it in my book. My claim about lack of evidence has to do with the specific view that HRC, Barack, and company run an international child trafficking ring in cahoots with the Pope, Queen Elizabeth, etc. I do not think that notion of pedophilia is true.
4. I share your realization of bias in the news media.
5. I do not accept your logic that my book would be useless if it just focused on QAnon and the right wing. A book does not have to be omni-directional to be useful. In any case, you will be happy to know that I reference left-wing items.
6. I am for free speech and despise the way that our culture negates it.
7. Yes, the killings related to QAnon are minor in contrast to the killing machinery of modern states.
Thanks for the reply. I'm glad you understand that it wasn't an attack. I swam in the left wing waters back of that pedo theory back in the early 21st century. I have an annoying tendency to push back against whatever I'm told. My wife likes to say I just like to play devil's advocate. I tend to think that it's just because I'm sort of an asshole. I pushed back against the left wing version. Didn't go well. I did the same, although superficially, against Qanon in 2016. Didn't go well either. I avoid those pools now. Not worth the hassle &, I realized that even if you kick out one leg of a conspiracy's support structure, the true believers will be nailing 2 legs in its place before the one you kicked out hits the ground.
Good luck with your book though.
If the country did more reading & less clicking it would instantly be a better country.
The best conspiracies always contain a grain of truth. Hence why the Jeffery Epstein scandal added fuel to the Q conspiracies. Now there’s a bunch of stories coming out in France about the left intellectuals there who have been accused left and right of pedophilia and incest. Except the stories are true and the accusations are coming from the victims themselves. So more fertile grounds to build more conspiracies.
I would love for the professor to tell us all the real world murders done by QAnon. Sounds like the professor is living in the opposite fantasy world to QAnon. Maybe we should call it the "NonQAnon" cult. You get 2 cults for the price of one. One that is whacko (QAnon) and the other that is equally whacko about the QAnon whacko's somehow secretly murdering and promoting Trump. What a total joke.
I am not sure what to make of your ad hominem attack. What is the "opposite fantasy world"? Is that a suggestion that I just made up the notion that murders can be traced to QAnon. On that one, look up the killing by Anthony Comello of Francisco Cali.
Technically you're right but the left wing conspiracy folk I was talking to on the web didn't dwell on that aspect. It was primarily the mind control angle that they dwelled on The social workers were primarily evangelical Christians who saw Satan everywhere.
It wasn't just the social workers. The investigators were following the lead of evangelicals who they viewed as more knowledgable about crimes they saw as occult in nature. Even their interviews were filled with incredibly leading questions. Kids were even bribed to give the "proper answer." It was a huge clusterfuck.
i assume your book addresses why Qanon exists at all. Does it have anything to do with the perceived (and very real) bias of the mainstream media, and the relentless campaign to distort reality so as to always portray Democrats as "good" and Republicans as "bad?" I know almost nothing about Qanon - most conservatives know less about it than most liberals, I wager - but that would be my guess.
Sure, sure. But there's much less right-wing media. You have to go looking for it; it's not omnipresent. Let's not forget Antifa is not "just an idea," like Biden would have us believe. Extremism exists everywhere, on all sides, and it can be weaponized, but rarely contained. That's the danger in cultivating it, which both Democrats and Republicans have participated equally.
QAnon is a joke. If you want to make jokes dangerous then go right ahead. Remember those folks that all killed themselves in San Diego because they were going to rid on a comet to some utopia. Was that dangerous? Sure it was, but if people want to believe in fantasy worlds, who can stop them. What I can't believe is that someone would spend their time writing a book about QAnon. What a waste of time.
"If you want to make jokes dangerous then go right ahead."
There must be some psychological reason why "The Joker," a villain in Batman comic books (specifically intended for children) first appearing in 1940, has become a cult hero on the internet. Hollywood also likes to make expensive movies about The Joker in which he is the dashing protagonist. Joker I (1989, Burton), Joker II (2008, Nolan), Joker III (2019, Phillips).
"if people want to believe in fantasy worlds, who can stop them."
uh, you called this one. It's their fantasy world and everybody else is going to have to live it it.
Gary...why is it a waste of time writing a book about a very popular movement, one that has dangerous elements, and has not received any major book length investigation?
By the way professor, saying your book was useless was a poor choice of words. It would probably be something I wouldn't read because I always preferred the left wing version of this beast since it had a lot more nuance. Qanon , quite frankly, has so many gaping holes in it that you could drive a fleet of semis through its main tenets. It's littered with prediction after prediction that never come true. These are then followed up with more predictions that never come true. The alleged "code" in the Podesta emails is so subjective as to be useless. If I'm not mistaken there are only a few accepted "interpreters" of Q's cryptic utterances. It always struck me as more LARP than cult but that's my personal view.
One of the problems with QAnon is there are few boundaries to determine what is part of the movement's ideology...hence, the long list of conspiracy theories as sub-sets. My book lists 25 major QAnon "interpreters" but there are more. All 25 have large audiences.
Makes it convenient then to lump any dissenting view into a Qanon category. Is Qanon literally anyone who opposes one-party rule by Democrats? Seems likely.
My incredibly superficial take on Qanon was that it contained many sub groups. That is a lot of interpreters though. Do they all agree or is there bickering? Y'know, you've piqued my interest. I'm always looking for reading material since I don't watch TV or have much of an internet presence. I may just take your book out for a spin.
Right on Polly. Yes, absolutely, one needs to intentionally read (or at least sample) news and opinion from across the spectrum or you can be taken hostage by a particular viewpoint, as is the case with many (esp on the Left) today, as you point out.
Polly, if I may, which of the many sites you follow do you find to be the most reliable and/or illuminating and/or informative?
Hi AHamilton, a long reply :-) It's all about what I want to know. I'd like to give you one news place that does it all, but I can't. I don't use NYT for anything now except to read what crazy talking points the Dems/Swamp elites are using today. For actual grounded political commentary I follow responsible journalists like Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Andy Ngo - who's been amazingly brave in his reporting on Antifa. The New York Post has been awfully good and awfully censored about the Hunter/Joe Biden grift. I think Tucker Carlson has been really good at reporting on DC recently. He's the only credible one on Fox, CNN or any other major network news. I think the biggest issue right now is the slavery and genocide against the Uyghurs and Falun Gong that's been going on in China - which should deeply disturb everyone - the Left media has been largely just paying lip service to it while looking the other way because of CCP power and money. This will go down as one of the most disgraceful eras in US media. For them to harp on American slavery, which was over a long time ago, or Trump as Hitler when the Hitler died over 75 years ago while ignoring this genocide boggles my mind. So I look to Epoch Times for coverage. A leftist friend recently told me she can't believe Epoch Times on the slavery/torture/sterilization of Uyghur women because she was told by Wikipedia it's extreme right wing misinformation. I explained to her that ET is owned by a Falun Gong member and they know firsthand the genocide of the CCP. I pointed out to her the tweet by the CCP boasting about sterilizing Uyghur women. She said “But Epoch Times is pro-Trump.” I said “Show me anyone who's escaped communism who isn't pro-Trump. You can't. That doesn't invalidate their reporting of the genocide.”She won't talk to me now. Real accounts of the real horrors going on involve too much soul searching for the liberals. They'd have to give up Netflix, their iPhones ... so they're coddled into collaboration with the genocide by the MSM.
Thanks for your engaged reply, Polly. We are, I think, very much on the same wavelength in terms of what constitutes a reliable source. Tucker and Glenn Greenwald (and our beloved Matt) are seemingly spread out on the political spectrum, but ultimately I see them as varying stripes of a sort we might call traditional liberals, people whose commitment to some notion of fairmindedness and factual truth outweighs their commitment to any particular ideology or narrative. That is so important, and increasingly rare in these hyperpolarized times.
That's my favorite irony of Antifa & crew. They loudly voice opposition to slavery practices that are long dead while documenting "their struggles" using iPhones that are made by some form of slavery.
I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics they have to go through to keep from collapsing into a puddle of existential goo.
Cognitive dissonance really isn't a big enough umbrella to hide under.
"A leftist friend recently told me she can't believe Epoch Times on the slavery/torture/sterilization of Uyghur women because she was told by Wikipedia it's extreme right wing misinformation."
But that isn't the case. You can read the Wikipedia entry for yourself; it reports the allegations without disclaimers about "right wing misinformation."
Thank you for your thoughtful reply and appreciate the links. I don't just read or watch what media says about immigrants who've fled communism. I like to talk immigrants to hear what they say. Not what the media says they think. While you're right, some don't like Trump, all have said he recognized the threat of the CCP. They all told me they don't get why so many Americans don't get the danger of China. Biden is completely in the pocket of the CCP and all the media that fawns over him too. They may wag a finger once in a while at China for the genocide, but they're insanely busy 99% of the time writing about the danger of American terrorists.
I agree with you Polly. I don't get it either. I read and listen to CNN, Fox, MSNBC and a bunch of left wing and right wing kook sites, and it doesn't ever get me saying anything but "all of these folks are whacko's." I just don't get why people are so easily persuaded by one side or the other, but evidently they are easily persuaded.
Ultimately though, you get the politicians and media that you deserve. If folks really believe these propagandists, then I guess they deserve them and will get them good and hard.
Thanks, Gary. I've been pondering it. And they don't seem to understand it's not just the crummy politicians they get, but the crummy community. My husband and I always enjoyed throwing parties. I love to cook and food and lively conversation was how I grew up. We'd debate politics (my father was a lawyer), movies, books... But after Trump was elected it started not to be fun anymore. And it's not his fault. It was happening years before that with my left identifying friends. Honestly, a big part of why I stopped calling myself a liberal was I just found the conservative people who came to our parties far more - not just tolerant - but interested in other points of view, more educated, more widely read, less censorial. One Trump hater accused me of being a Nazi (actually Eva Braun) because I simply said, when he was ranting about Russian collusion, that I saw no evidence of it. (He waited to email me that after the party.) He and the handful of people around him said “Oh no? Well, the NYT believes in Russian collusion.” I stopped stirring the pot of stew and asked if they all believed the NYT. They said “Of course.” I tried to explain the Park Avenue mega money makers off war oriented bias of NYT, how they covered up the Bushs' involvement in the cocaine trade during the Central America war fiasco ... they wouldn't have it. I said to my husband that I just couldn't cook for small minded people. He agreed. They killed the fun.
How could you have possibly trusted any of their international or foreign affairs coverage after the Judith Miller scandal? They still haven't adequately apologized or admitted what happened. After 2001-2003 I finally woke up to the fact that the NYT is just private finance propaganda and the CIA exercising its "soft" powers domestically (and illegally) to assist with generating support for their various agendas.
Oh yeah for sure. But his lies and plagiarism didn't result in an illegal invasion of a country and contribute to the forever wars that enabled Obama and Hillary to sack Libya on behalf of France and of course fund the head choppers in Syria. Hell, Trump wouldn't have assassinated Soleimani if we had never invaded Iraq in the first place. But now I'm way off on a tangent.
Because I was 10 years old when the Judith Miller scandal happened and I had literally never heard of it until almost 15 years later. All I knew was that my parents were smart and they thought it was the best paper in the country so naturally that's what I should read when it was time for me to become an Informed Adult too.
Right, but as I said, they have yet to fully account for it and the fact that you didn't hear of it until 15 years later is due in equal parts to your age - AND - the fact that the rest of the corporate mainstream media basically stopped talking about it and brushed it under the rug. Regardless, once that happened (I was 24 years old at the time) I did the research and NYT has a history of misrepresenting crucial international news and telling bald faced lies. Look at their Venezuela or Russiagate coverage for examples. If you want the CIA viewpoint by all means continue reading the international section, but like I said, they do occasionally print some good local/state level investigative journalism and their book and film/music reviews are good.
I'm not sure how you read my original comment and took away the idea that I still trust the NYT lol. I don't read them at all anymore. Once I started to realize how full of shit they were because of the Trump and Amazon coverage I started looking into their history of questionable reporting and learned about Judith Miller and of course the Russiagate sham, among other things. I don't really see how I could have come to that realization any sooner given the fact that I was a child during the Iraq war and the media I had been raised to trust never mentioned anything about the scandal when I was a young adult gaining political consciousness.
And I'm not sure how you read either of my comments and took away the idea that you somehow trust the NYT implicitly. Furthermore, my original question was past tense: "How could you HAVE TRUSTED..." which you kind of answered in your original comment that you agreed with them for a portion of your young life despite the information you needed to realize they were and are untrustworthy being out there and easy to find. Granted, we all have our awakening moments and yours was Amazon and Trump, but the NYT has NEVER been trustworthy is my point.
But good point about Amazon, BTW. That gives lie to their local reporting too. So perhaps actually NONE of what they print should be viewed uncritically.
The frenetic news cycle makes it easy to to just "move on" and brush past indiscretion under the rug. If only human relationships / marriages were like that! If you're on the wrong end of that, you never forget. Ever.
thanks for your comment. It really resonates with my own life experiences. While I was graduating college in 2010, I too grew up with NYT as the 'paper-of-record'.
The extent of their manipulation and deception wasn't obvious until, like you, I saw how their reporting grossly diverged from my own first-hand experiences. I grew up in Vermont, was quite familiar with Bernie Sanders history, and worked as a volunteer organizer for his presidential campaign in 2015. Seeing the NYT ignore, then ridicule, then assassinate Sander's character was quite eye-opening. I'm open to good-faith arguments for or against policy, but they did not argue in good faith. They revealed precisely who's interests they represent.
Taibbi, Greenwald, Scheerpost, Matt Stoller, Michael Tracey, TrueAnon, Consortium News are my go to places for reading. I still check out the nyt and other msm outlets, but I definitely don't trust their reporting. Cheers.
Yes!! Their portrayal of Bernie Sanders was a huge issue for me as well. I wasn't aware of him before 2015 and at the time I assumed they were just ignoring him because they thought he was a marginal candidate (though I voted for him) and because they were obviously heavily biased towards Hillary. I thought it was ordinary ideological bias - I had no idea how deep the rot really was. I also love TrueAnon and their exposé of the 2016 DNC "ratfuck" of his candidacy, aided and abetted by the media, was an eye opener to say the least. Then 2020 happened and it was honestly disturbing how the mainstream liberal media and the party establishment treated him. Truly shameful to see how they maligned one of the few genuine public servants in Washington - one of the last few politicians who cares about the people in a way that's obvious even to those who disagree with him. Suddenly he was a Jewish anti-semite, a problematic old white man with problematic followers, an angry old fool, and his one ally Tulsi Gabbard was a Russian asset. It was absolutely loony to read compared to their fawning coverage of creepy uncle Biden the "reformed" segregationist and fresh-out-of-the-CIA-lab Mayor Pete.
Even my conservative relatives will admit to respecting Bernie for his integrity and decency though they loathe socialism - THAT says more about his character to me than anything published in the NYT. I had already stopped trusting the msm and the major parties at that point but their 2020 Bernie coverage made me actively angry. Thank god for substack and patreon! I haven't heard of a couple of those writers you mentioned so I'll definitely check them out.
I used to pooh-pooh conservative accusations about the "liberal control of the media." In 2016, watching NYT/WaPo go completely in the tank for HRC and do anything and everything to smear Sanders was an instructive experience.
«I used to pooh-pooh conservative accusations about the "liberal control of the media."»
As to "control of the media" the Trump story of the past 4 years shows that either that "the zios control the media" is a really delusion or "the zios" are really dumb: Trump has been a good likudnik, put himself under likudnik protection by giving Bibi everything he wanted (except admittedly a nuclear bombing of Iran), and still the mainstream USA media and politicians treated him to a barrage of attacks, and the likudniks did not support or defend him. Either doing what the likudniks want is worthless because they don't have influence or the likudniks have influence but are ready to throw under the bus even those most loyal to them.
Some of my most enjoyable reads are not American newspapers, but British ones. I spent some time in Britain and still regularly go back (a temporary exception for these COVID days). It was in Britain that I discovered the British Spectator magazine (while it's related to the American Spectator and shares some writers and articles, it's still clearly a different beast). It's a pragmatic conservative commentary magazine with insightful articles about current issues. Although it has a British focus, it extensively discusses the woke cultural wars (which Britain is also experiencing, although not quite as badly as the US, but the same entrenched mindset of woke progressives entangling all the great institutions is also becoming a problem). The Spectator also observes American politics. And it has both conservative and liberal writers, who are united to in their commitment to old fashioned Enlightenment liberalism.
I also find the London Times an good read. It's a pragmatic centrist newspaper.
For the US, the best commentaries are coming from the margins of journalism these days. Matt's substack has been great and Andrew Sullivan is another good name. Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Ngo are two other names to read. City Journal offers excellent intellectual conservative viewpoints.
For basic journalism ("fact based") Bloomberg and the WSJ are limited in scope but tend to be more accurate and have fewer subjective moralizing creep and still report as opposed to advocate. WSJ does have a very conservative Op-Ed page but the Op-Ed editors and the news editors/journalists are still clearly separate functions (unlike at the late, great and lamented NYT).
I do wish we had a stronger tabloid tradition in this country. The NYPost comes closest. Everyone loves to hate the tabloids (as in the UK) but the tabloids can offer cunningly honest reporting every now and then that forces into the public conscious a scandal or topic other papers are reluctant to cover, especially politically incorrect or inconvenient ones (such as the Hunter Biden laptop scandal).
Nice catch on the tabloid contribution ("cunningly honest" yes). While Murdoch's Post has a clear ideological line (perhaps the only American daily willing to push back against some of the more egregious excesses of the "mainstream" papers) some of the UK tabs end up pretty close to neutral. The Daily Mail will cover stories that the US media won't, and it does so from the middle; Left, Right, Center, whatever, if it's lurid they'll print it.
"The Economist", like "The Times" and the FT and WSJ, are "establishment" propaganda organs, and their political "news" are the same opinions pieces as everywhere, right-wing neoliberal/neocon, rather than "liberal". Their business news tend to be rather more reliable.
If you can stomach a good article from a (very) politically incorrect site, this description of the decadence of the "The London Economist" as it was seems quite reliable to me:
“So as time went on, more and more of the sharp intellectual features which had once given the magazine such verve and originality were gradually sanded off, not completely, but to a considerable extent. The London Economist became just the plain Economist, rarely willing to violate the boundaries or taboos of the reigning DC/NYC neoconservative/neoliberal American Establishment, merely a smarter, better written, much deeper version of Time or Businessweek.“
BTW I really like BusinessWeek or Fortune, they often, often have in depth pieces, but again their political news are "aligned" propaganda, and sometimes BusinessWeek is even more informative than "The Economist".
WSJ. Still subscribed to nyt but hardly read. I read NYT for over 10 years as an immigrant, but got tired of NYT in last 2 years especially by reading opinion writers such as Michelle G and Paul K. Not only lack of rationale but also full of hatred messages. Don’t want brain got polluted anymore.
I used to commute into Midtown on the NJ Transit trains through most of the 90s. Rightfully or wrongfully, I could identify the serious people who were reading trade mags associated with a line of work. The unserious people were reading the NYT. Dress and behavior also was generally in alignment with this view. Not much WSJ because this was Midtown.
There is no single go to news source for me. I still pay for the NYT and can only consume it in small amounts, kind of like how high society women applied arsenic to maintain their pale complexion (not to worry, I am a POC). Also, the WSJ and various online sites, blogs and podcasts from left to right (yes, Matt and Glenn are "left" sort of) including libertarian, democratic socialists and a touch of socialism here and there. I drink from all sides of the trough, even Dan Bongino (who did a decent job exposing the Russia hoax)! Ideally, I should start a news site that summarizes news/opinions from all walks of life. Would any of you read it? I know I would.
I noticed it another way. Forever, while the Times was the national paper of record, it was still a NEW YORK paper, with great reporting of local affairs, politics, transit and sports. The Times sports columnists were nationally recognized.
I used to work in sports (I was the kind of person who the National Sports Daily was written for). Sometime around the millennium, the Times stopped sending reporters to games, including New York-based games, unless the games were of "national" importance (e.g. World Series, NCAA championship)... more or less the Yankees and Mets game recaps were brief AP writeups. And then suddenly, partially because of the internet, the game recaps stopped, and the entire sports section was dedicated to cultural issues. Caster Semenya became more important to the Times than Henrik Lundqvist. More ink was spilled about LeBron James' off-court marketing decisions than the brilliant pitching of Jacob DeGrom, who performed for a NYC team once every five days.
The Times decided that facts were less important than opinion in ALL sections - and started cheerleading for their pet causes in the sports section. Transgender high school sports (pro), Minority coaching candidates (pro), Fan reactions to Colin Kaepernick (anti), College Football playing through COVID (anti)...
It was almost as if the sports section wasn't being written for sports fans, but rather the rest of the newsroom, who needed a cheat sheet to keep up with the culture at large.
«Sometime around the millennium, the Times stopped sending reporters to games, including New York-based games, [...] And then suddenly, partially because of the internet, the game recaps stopped, and the entire sports section was dedicated to cultural issues.»
In large part those reporters sent to games were paid by small ad revenue, then eBay etc. sucked that up, and opinion on cultural issues can be written much more cheaply.
Consider TK itself: we pay a small sum and all we get is opinion pieces on cultural issues, and not even a wide range of cultural issues, but usually only opinion pieces on just media cultural issues. That's interesting enough for me, but it is a long way from "sending reporters to games" and gathering primary news.
I think there is an inverse point here too--along with the loss of ad revenue, the NYT has come to rely far more heavily on subscription fees, which generally are paid by the sorts of fanboys and fangirls who populate its comments sections. Accordingly, the paper has narrowed its scope and it ideology to appeal to them.
«the NYT has come to rely far more heavily on subscription fees, which generally are paid by the sorts of fanboys and fangirls»
Oh yes, in another comment I point out that in article mentioned by another commenter there is very important statistic:
“Digital subscriptions to the New York Times, which had been stagnant, nearly doubled in the first year of Trump’s presidency. By August 2020, the paper had 6 million digital subscribers — six times the number on Election Day 2016 and the most in the world for any newspaper.”
Those extra 5 million new digital subscribers loved reading the 3,000 "Russian collusion" stories that the NYT seemed to have published over the same 4 years.
It's leading us to the conclusion that the so called elite are really not that elite and never really have been.
We're seeing evolution take place as the former elites completely over reach and over react to their own failure to lead us correctly and with integrity.
I really can't agree with you that an aristocracy isn't inherently a bad thing. It's precisely how we got to this juncture.
The entire idea that just because someones great granddaddy was a good leader or had integrity automatically means their offspring will follow suit is just ridiculous on it's face and has been proven wrong over and over again.
That's not meant to let off the hook all the wanna be sycophants and other useful idiots that will gladly do their bidding, I'm just trying to find the brass tacks that keep this fallacy alive.
I really hope this is the end of this bullshit concept we have in our culture and we can begin to organize according to the actual results people get from leading.
As of right now the elite are about to turn this country into the middle east war crime spree we had in Iraq and Afghanistan due to their fear of being held accountable for their failures.
"I really can't agree with you that an aristocracy isn't inherently a bad thing. It's precisely how we got to this juncture." Agreed. The Tories of the Eighteenth century have become our aristocracy, along with the nuevo riche tech overlords.
Yes, I am astounded at the mediocrity of the few member of the "elite" I have actually met...there's very little there in terms of character and achievement.
Thanks for that thoughtful reminiscences about the NYT. As someone who began reading it in the 1970s, I find it to be an unreadable propaganda sheet today--"All The News That Fits Our Narrative" should now be on the masthead. But I would not have necessarily marked the beginning of its decline in 2000. But you might be right about that.
Roger Waters is a keen observer of the human condition, as well as a great songwriter. and conceptualizer (is that a word??) I don't necessarily agree with his politics, but I admit I love his songs. Glad he is still writing.
Roger Waters is a bit of a narcissistic sociopath himself, at least to hear his bandmates talk. That said, i'm prepared to forgive him for his views, being cloistered as he is. He also appears to be seeing death coming and trying to be a better person now.
Yes, there's been a lot written about what a jerk he is in the studio. I would point out, however, that he has said he was wrong to treat PF like he did in the 80s. So at least he has seen the error of his ways. He's still a good songwriter, when not too self-indulgent.
Remember that the NYT, while promoting platitudinous & vague notions such as "integrity", "truth", etc. was behind the Iraq war, regime change, and other monstrosities. The NYT is a cover for warmongers & managed to convert the pseudo-left to militarism.”
«An aristocracy, as the elite Americans have become, is not inherently a bad thing. There has always been an element of an aristocracy in America, a consensus among the nation's elite. The problem emerges when the aristocracy is not just out of touch with the broader swathes of its fellow population, but disdainful of the same people.»
An argument could be made that it is not a proper aristocracy, but an oligarchy, or a plutocracy, and what you describe is the dixie attitude that there are are masters and their trusties, and there are servants, and the servants are not really on the same level as the masters and their trusties. This attitude is very popular among the servants too, many of them want more to become masters or trusties than to end a system where there is such a huge difference between masters, trusties and servants.
As often happens de Tocqueville's saw it coming:
«Thus as the mass of the nation turns to democracy, the particular class which runs industry becomes more aristocratic. Men resemble each other more in one context and appear increasingly different in another; inequality grows in the smaller social group as it reduces in society at large. Thus it is that, when we trace things back to their source, a natural impulse appears to be prompting the emergence of an aristocracy from the very heart of democracy.
But that aristocracy is not like any that preceded it. In the first place, you will noticed that it is an exception, a monstrosity in the general fabric of society, since it applies only to industry and a few industrial professions. The small aristocratic societies formed by certain industries inside the immense democratic whole of our day contains, as they did in the great aristocracies of ancient times, some men who are very wealthy and a multitude who are wretchedly poor. These poor men have few ways of escaping from their social conditions to become rich but the wealthy are constantly becoming poor or leave the world of business after realizing their profits. Thus, the elements which form the poorer classes are virtually fixed but those that produce the richer classes are not so. In fact, although there are rich men, richer classes do not exist, for the wealthy do not share a common spirit or objective or traditions or hopes; there are individual members, therefore, but no definite corporate body.
Not only are the rich not firmly united to each other, but you can also say that no true link exists between rich and poor. They are not forever fixed, one close to the other; moment by moment, self-interest pulls them together, only to separate them later. The worker depends upon the employer in general but not on any particular employer. These two men see each other at the factory but do not know each other anywhere else; and while they have one point of contact, in all other respects they keep their distance. The industrialist only asks the worker for his labor and the latter only expects his wages. The one is not committed to protect, nor the other to defend; they are not linked in any permanent way, either by habit or duty.
The business aristocracy seldom lives among the industrial population it manages; it aims not to rule them, but to use them.
An aristocracy so constituted cannot have a great hold over its employees, and, even if succeeds in grabbing them for a moment, they escape soon enough. It does not know what it wants and cannot act.
The landed aristocracy of past centuries was obliged by law, or believed itself obliged by custom, to help its servants and to relieve their distress. However this present industrial aristocracy, having impoverished and brutalized the men it exploits, leaves public charity to feed them in times of crisis. This is a natural consequence of what has been said before. Between the worker and employer, there are many points of contacts but not real relationship.
Generally speaking, I think that the industrial aristocracy which we see rising before our eyes is one of the most harsh to appear on earth; but at the same time, it is one of the most restrained and least dangerous.
However, this is the direction in which the friends of democracy should constantly fix their anxious gaze; for if ever aristocracy and the permanent inequality of social conditions were to infiltrate the world once again, it is predictable that this is the door by which they would enter.»
"I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run." -Alexis de Tocqueville
True. I don't disagree with what you write. I referred to aristocracy as that class of people who dictate the mores of society. It's unavoidable to have them, even in classless Soviet Union there was still the elite party figures who dictated the course of events.
I will agree that an aristocracy, or elite, or upper class, however we call them, will always treat the common people badly - if they can get away with it. The trick is keeping the elite class in check.
«I referred to aristocracy as that class of people who dictate the mores of society.»
Then more generally "elite"; "aristocracy" is the type of elite that is at the top of feudalism (which is based on personal relationships) and is defined by a different legal status, rather than impersonal market relationships. Thus de Tocqueville's point that the old aristocracy felt somewhat it had to "help its servants and to relieve their distress", while the current business oligarchy does not.
Years ago- maybe 5 or so, I read several articles from the NYT. The articles were all similar in one respect: the writers were trying to analyze and make sense (for the benefit of an apparently cloistered readership) the goings on in the rest of the country. They were analyzing people, occupations, residents of a local area, etc and in turn, explaining it to their readers. I came away from it all with the perception that the readers of the NYT were a pretty clueless and poorly travelled bunch. Needless to say, they also were simply not experienced in a wide and varied breadth of life.
So, yeah, it seemed they were treating the rest of us like a distant land or new, heretofore little-studied species. It was all very patronizing. Reminded me a lot of the NPR douchebags.
The NYT has always been about one thing, and one thing only. Legitimizing the use of American military and economic power and countering any perceived ideological or physical threats to the Western private finance based capitalist system. They've done some decent reporting at the local and state levels in the past, but the main overarching mission has always been on behalf of the CIA.
What you are describing about the change you saw in 2000 is basically the inevitable shift from covering main street and flyover America in the same way they have always covered the USSR, Iraq or Venezuela or China or any country that isn't 100% open to Western private finance or extractive industries from the US, UK, Germany or France. I know people who have called it the Langley Times for decades and they were proven right in 2017.
Excellent, thank you. I agree about the change. But there was always a division between the Lib Left that wanted to make great music, create a new localist organic cuisine - and the puritanical joyless Left that just wanted us to be comrades in pain. I began reading magazines and newspapers in the 60s. My hip suburban mom subscribed to newspapers and magazines like Evergreen (which was published by Barney Rosset who also published banned books like Lady Chatterley's Lover, Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett and who I was thrilled to have a phone chat with in his last days to thank him), as well as Playboy (which published really terrific writers like Terry Southern), and the establishment ones like NYT and New Yorker. I loved a lot of The New Yorker, especially the cartoons, humor (years later they published my humor), long reported pieces and Pauline Kael, who would become a close friend. NYT was always a scoldy snooze. It struck me then as inherently puritanical, like the puritanical Leftists I mentioned. When I met those Leftists in the 60s they weren't remotely sexy, their feminist women never shaved their legs and they always knew what was best for us. What's saddest about the Left media is that they're now devoid of anything free or fun, their satire sucks. The Leftist puritans have taken over. Their idea now of fun is when Sarah Jeong dumps on white people.
This is an excellent summary of the NYTs and their coastal compatriots. Their mindset are those of colonialist who have to manage the savage natives in their midsts. They speak of middle America in anthropological terms, it’s maddening.
What’s really frustrating is when Thomas Edsall gathers up some sociologists to examine Trump voters so as to explain them to the colonists, without ever actually speaking to a real Trump voter. It must be how some POC feel when whites whitesplaine about POC. I’m not a Trump voter but I live in one of the reddest of red states in the nation. My extended family are Trump voters as are my next door neighbors, I know of whence I speak. Everyone of these academic types totally miss the mark. They are the most stereotyped characters I’ve ever read about. If it was done this way about any other demographic there would be outrage from all sides.
One other rant about the NYT & WAPO. They purport to have “conservatives” on their editorial boards. But their idea of ideologic diversity is David Brooks, Brett Stephens, Jennifer Rubins and Max Boot. Seriously. All of these people are the most war loving neocons of neoconservatives. If they would pay attention to real trends in conservative right wing world they would find the majority of right wingers & republicans are sick of forever wars and do not want to intervene anywhere in the world right now (as side from war living Tom Cotton types). These “opinion” writers do not have anything in common with any of these people. They are probably the smallest minority politically there is and are out of touch with everyone from all sides. As the young people say today, NYTs should “do better”.
These people are just paid shills of the corporatist agenda. Focusing anger on them is misplaced. They take money to say what is desired; I think most of us would also do so. That's the evil of the filthy lucre.
One thing that baffled me is that after they hid the famine in Ukraine, covered up the holocaust and colluded with the W government to make up WMD, people still read it as if it cares about telling us the truth.
Just so well said Thomas. The echo chamber overreach MT elucidates (actual journalism amplified via insightful commentary) is why I subscribe and pay. MT, Glenn Greenwald, and to the right Lee Smith & Sharyl Attkisson, as example represent my own attempt to leave the bubble comfort zone - and read more broadly. Pocket book support for actual fact based reporting that comes with the commentary.
AS for the reference - two I have to pass on - first, NIXONLAND -(Rick Perlstein when he was still a historian and not back to hacking for the left) and Bryan Burroughs DAYS OF RAGE - both are well written and as bookends provide a general blueprint on how the pre-Watergate media and social atmosphere provided the backdrop for Trumps emergence and the dramatic response.
I think MT touched on some of this in GRIFTOPIA - how America is now engaged in a second Gilded Age - and just as the first one was never a fait acompli when it came to individualism and our unique Republican form of Democracy surviving, so it is again today.
Human agency matters now as it did then. Set aside all the pearl clutching and do locally what you can. But most of all resist the call to extremism from either side. Since I have lived most of my 60+ years in the gray zone of a working life - and never earned more than 30K in a year - MAGA was a natural fit. But I too have loved and been loved ( and lived almost half my life in either Kent Ohio, Charlottesville VA, or NYC, Washington, Chapel Hill & Greensboro) or loved Progressives - and that rural background that some on my fathers side insist predates the Jacksonian foundations of a once great Democrat Party - via Indiana County PA.
It is possible to admire both Steve Bannon and MT - and do so living on one's feet determined to stay that way - not on one's knees. It doesn't even take that much work really. While there are billions poured in right and left to fight this great ideological struggle we are now suffering - Tip O'Neill's oft referred adage applies - 'all politics are local'. So that is where the real battle is fought.
Read about the post Civil War corruption and all this Washington DC Kabuki theater looses some of it's Nightmare on Elm Street immediacy - we have been here before. The report of our demise ....another writer once said - and Tom Sawyer isn't dead even if God seems to be otherwise engaged....
Thanks again MT for a thoughtful afternoon - RE Laney
I agree with much of what you say, yet I've long observed the NYT to be elitist and out of touch. The differences now are the level of shrill contempt from the liberal elite towards those misbehavin' "others" and the added layers of insulation the elites have from the rest of the country -- insulation they're desperate to maintain.
But to get back to point 1, the Times has never been broad-based in its coverage of grubby blue collar people. The joke was they were lost once off Manhattan. Could never cover the outer boroughs, much less Pittsburgh. You mention Long Island. The exception to their non-coverage was, of course, the Hamptons. Yet, Eastern Long Island had long been a basically blue collar area with rich tourists and summer home people. It had it's own little aristocracy and was heavily Republican. Yet, to the Times, the locals were little more than amusing rustics who overcharged for yard work. This also applied to the plumbers of Queens.
As you point out, you did get a smattering of opinion from across the narrow range of politics acceptable to the elite. But that's it. I don't think this essential elitism of the Times changed. Rather it's the defensive quality they show, slapping back and sneering at people they simply used to ignore or, at best, laugh at.
The Bernie campaign and its coverage was an eye-opening moment. Bernie's success, despite being black-balled by the msm, brought out the disdain of the elites. They were threatened and were struggling to control the narrative.
Thank God for Matt and Glenn. I need more of this kind of writing. It doesn’t always have to be perfect. It just has to remain skeptical. Of everyone and everything.
I was such an old school liberal for so long I didn’t even notice when things changed. That is until I had a conversation with my younger cousin and it ended with him calling me a fascist. Not because I’m a fascist, but because I don’t agree with him on everything, even we agree on almost everything, and it’s because these younger people have become puritans of another stripe. And like puritans of any stripe they will attack and destroy anyone who isn’t a fervent believer. And it’s to bad because half the fun of being a liberal is being the anti-Puritan, or at least it used to be. Now it is about conformity and the press has become just another tool of the hive mind.
Is it possible to permanently top Matt's comment on his own site?
I think Americans have entered a permanently mentally diseased state in which their politics are only intelligible through the lens of pop culture. I myself am guilty of participating in this.
It’s true, hence the Liberal Establishment imagining they’re characters in WW. We have a totally distortion reality field in the US where politics, entertainment and culture and even religion are fused together. It’s so unhealthy.
As Thomas Frank pointed out on Useful Idiots last week, pop culture has been extremist since, what, the 70s? Buy this Extreme soda pop! Extreme sneakers! Extreme Cadillac! And while Extreme! goods and lifestyles are still being pushed, extremist politics is now forbidden on the internet and absent in MSM except to denounce it with suitable aghastitude.
Right on, Nate! Had the same thing happen to me with 2 friends. It's like where are they coming from? These are men in their 60's acting like teen-agers
I know what you mean. Once, at a family gathering near a small town in Michigan, I asked my nephew if he knew a good place to have breakfast. He said, "Well, the best place is X but they have a Trump sign in the window so I'd never eat there." I asked why not and he said "because Trump hates all human beings." I looked at him for a tell-tale smile or some other indication he was joking but he seemed sincere. I wanted to ask my nephew if this statement included Trump's family but didn't bother. What's the use?
It’s about time to launch Radio Free America. Or, we should just have a one-party system with the media belongs to that either officially or only ideologically, which shuns any other publications, calling them not only dissents but dangerous.
Oh boy, I can see we found another scapegoat in order to keep the binary thought train steaming down the track.
Did it ever occur to you that while you were setting on your ass doing nothing someone was indoctrinating your nephew just like you, me and everyone else got indoctrinated ??
of course if liberal means anti-puritan (not a terms with which I'm familiar, but I'll keep going) and liberals insist upon obedient conformity, it's not liberal any more, it's right wing conservatism, like all of these political brand names of the last 20 years or so, the relative positions are much the same, but the center point of the bell curve has moved far left because the "left" views of the party that installed Biden are aligned with what was hard right last century …
I'm i'm following you correctly, all authoritarian governments, including but not limited to the USSR, Khmer Rouge and PRC are right wing conservative regimes?
"nor would I suggest Biden and the DNC are comparable to Stalin and the USSR …"
I am going to type a hyperbolic and alarmist comment. Stop reading now if you're not interested in that kind of thing.
"Biden" (a mummy behind a podium) and the DNC (the actual power structure) have far more sophisticated tools at their disposal than Stalin ever did. Jack D. has made it clear which side he's on; the side of the ascending power structure. It makes him some dimes.
You said if "liberals insist on conformity, it's not liberal anymore, it's right wing conservatism". I was curious if communist revolutionaries were liberal in your eyes. It sounds like you would brand them as right wing conservatives? Or maybe i'm completely misunderstanding you?
I always stress the point that only partisan hacks debate words like 'liberal'/'left' and 'conservative'/'right' over the more important descriptor 'authoritarian'. Engaging in that strawman debate is misdirection meant to exploit individual biases. The important word is authoritarian. Some 150 million people in the 20th century learned this the hard way.
Just one more thought. The essence of establishing trust in any relationship is being willing to admit your mistakes rather than ignore them or explain them away.
It's not so much that the media is continuously wrong, it's that they are, largely speaking, unwilling to admit their error...if an error is "admitted," it's typically through a stealth change made in the middle of the night.
Witness the Post's latest fiasco on the Harris story. They put the original back but never admitted that taking it down was wrong.
Think how much *less* trust there would be if loyalists to those publications were as aware of these systematic impurities as Matt Taibbi's readers are. Almost all of my friends get their daily news from CNN, the WaPo and the NYT, and while most are canny enough to smell the bullshit in the Op-Ed section, but have no grasp of how perverted the news generation itself is. And neither would I, were it not for this and a couple other Substacks, honestly. This has only assured me of how much I will continue to ne unaware of no matter what. That's most likely fine at this point.
I think a lot of people don’t care if they are being told questionable facts or narratives from the press as long as it reinforces their own personal biases and helps them feel good about their worldview.
Well said. There is a willful ignorance afoot. The people who swallow without chewing the establishment narrative—which describes the vast majority of my friends and family on both side of the Atlantic—are fundamentally good people. Yet they blindly support the program of Perpetual War (mass slaughter of innocents), the systematic lowering of the value of labor & the living standard, and extensive censorship. Again, these are not bad people adhering to the more palatable establishment line, but they are unwittingly digging their own hole.
I think it's more a matter of "not getting caught" - they will never admit an "error" unless forced - maybe that's the difference between them and Trump :D the latter will never admit an error even when caught ...
Bari Weiss former WSJ & NYT editor/writer who most famously was run out of the NYT over the Tom Cotton oped suggesting using the National Guard over the summer..
One of the best things Trump did was reveal the mainstream press to be a lot of idiot lemmings who were hellbent on one ideological outcome. They revealed the wizard behind the curtain to be a lot of foolish people. Once the curtain is pulled back, it can never be closed again. That’s why people are seeking out authentic voices on Substack, podcasts, Rumble, Telegram and other outlets.
The media could care less. They've decided to be more open about the fact that their obvious superior grasp of the facts of the situation should be the only thing heard but the uneducated.
The reality is that I personally have arrived at the place of needing to check primary sources before I'll accept anything reported in the media.
If there aren't any to check then I'll mark it down as unknown.
That is so true. I cannot read anyone's 'facts' interesting to me without then spending rabbit hole hours seeking the actual truth. It sucks so much. I suspect my next 4 years will go like my last 2 weeks: They can write and say what they want, I no longer give a rat's ass because it's most likely bullshit, anyway.
MicrofiIm is the answer. The NYT could not sneak back and erase things like the Kamala Harris story when thousands of libraries had microfilms of the NYT. I began my librarian career in charge of microfilm and no one ever messed with the backfiles.
I'm not so sure. One of the Post's responses to the outcry over the Harris story was to point out that the print archives hadn't been changed...as if that justified changing the online version
What a great and essential piece. I've talked about this on multiple other Substack threads, apologies if it's a repeat for you:
Going back to the late 90s, I used to tell my friends who took in conservative media that outright lies weren't the problem. The problems are (A) the information that they will never share with you, because it runs counter to their narrative, that would make you *fully* informed and (B) when a story turns out to be bullshit, they simply stop talking about it, rather than walking it back, which leaves most consumers believing that the story was true.
At some point in late 2017, I decided to stop following the Russia story closely, planning to review it when the Mueller report came out. Everyone here knows how that turned out. Gross abuses by both the "deep state" and the media. I had mostly been getting news from the supposedly most dependable sources, so I began looking at other stories from the previous few years. Holy hell.
My own news ecosystem had the same problems that I used to point out in conservative media, and some that were worse. Now I have to try to walk every story, from any source, back to primary sources/documents as if I were an independent news organization.
I don't know what to do other than what I *am* doing, but most of my friends believe as much nonsense as conservatives have, and their news sources are essentially terrorizing them to boot. But it's impossible to convince most of them that this is happening; you will certainly be taken asa conspiracy theorist, or "alto right" or a Trump fan. I have a couple of friends who are at the same point as me, who were always curious and independent thinkers, but it's as if we have to have conversations in secret. It's a horrible situation and I feel sure that it will only get worse.
We can only do what we can do. It's far, far easier to believe that what is presented as news is the only news worth knowing. I think most people would believe a lie they knew to be a lie rather than accept the objective truth.
I just gave up and went full boat Trump. He isn't my cup of tea, but watching him drive people nuts and call into question all their beliefs in how they were loved by the people has been the better part of five years of pleasure. I lost a few friends, but what kind of friends were they really if they let politics influence the people they talk to? It's like hating someone for their religion.
Having pushed the country to the brink of civil war, our benighted media are victorious. The cats have eaten the canary, courtesy of the January 6 mob, the horror of the sights and beatings, and 5 deaths. For the media, it validated the last four years of insult, and just in time. Hubris? Don Lemon has the gravitas of Soupy Sales.
No amount of reason or appeal to honor will change them. When Katie Couric tries to be cool, parroting the re-education camp meme, and when re-education camp pops up too often for comfort, we're dealing with conformity. Within a month or so, three colleagues have begun using Newspeak terms and pronouns (she/her or "they") under their signatures -- this is in a business context. No one remotely wonders, has asked, or cares what their sex or gender is. When dealing with the obnoxiously closed minded ("our values") the only option is to go around them. A beginning may be Matt regularly guest lecturing at Columbia School of Journalism. Seriously. I'd pay to see it.
The group that suffers is the middle, the normals looking for the exit sign, leaving both parties in droves. That's who the Post and Times and cable are ignoring and disdaining, not QAnon nutjobs, and that is where the market is, if only there were a product and a party. I am thrilled that Trumps's assaults on wolves and wild places, cruelty regulations, and air and water will be overturned. I am not thrilled that on other matters Biden appears to have been captured by the fringe. Regardless of our personal politics, the one-sided preening that now passes for news isn't tolerable. Free speech is free speech, especially when you don't like it.
I just paid $50 to make this comment (annual subscription) so I hope Matt reads it! Just got to say, please keep in the game Matt. There are so few like you.
Thanks Matt, really great. Personally, I haven't trusted the media since I was a kid and my father, who was stationed in China during WWII, and afterwards became a lawyer for a number of media people, told me how false the media was about international politics and that if I wanted to know the truth I should look to great political thriller fiction writers like Ross Thomas and Richard Condon. Later I spent a lot of time among media people. Most of them just wanted to say the “smart” thing and get to sit at the right table. It's funny how so many Americans think that because someone has a byline in the NYT, or can wear a suit well on Meet the Press, or have an NPR voice that they're telling the truth. I always tell such believers to spend a little real time with these people and they'd be far less impressed because many are psych medicated fruitcakes who wouldn't be able to hold a working class job or run a small business if their life depended on it - which is why they have contempt for the people who can. But twenty years ago there were more people doing real reporting -like Debbie Nathan's amazing expose of the daycare witch-hunt scandals in the late 80's/early 90s. And there was a lot more fiction that told the real truth. Fortunately, there are still a few and that's why you're important Matt, even when I disagree with you, which is a good thing.
My dad—a career newspaper reporter—told me a story from his first year working at a big city paper. (He was still in college part-time; this was back when you could get a decent job with a certain amount of talent and a high school diploma.)
He was reading some sort of zany human interest story that was showing up on the AP wire. He said something out loud like “wow—this is unbelievable.” His editor laughed and said “then it’s probably made-up. Half of the stuff that comes in on the wire is bullshit.”
He remembered being shocked that his editor would dismiss half of the news reported by the most conservative, respected mainstream source as being, to one degree or another, “bullshit”—but it was a view that he quickly came to share.
When I was growing up, I’d say that I learned how to read the paper and watch the news from studying his reactions. Then as now, a bombshell news story was 1/3 press release, 1/3 subtle invention or exaggeration, and 1/3 truth frosting.
The good reporters (including Matt, I assume) lived in terror of a correction or a libel suit, triple-checking everything. The bad reporters, though, rarely got caught, and had a much better chance of being elevated into media celebrity: the Stephen Glasses and Jonah Lehrers of the world.
(When I was a kid, I remember, there was one specific reporter at my dad’s paper whom he regarded as a full-on compulsive liar. That guy has gone on to win a Pulitzer and a PEN award.)
I watched CBS before the inauguration began and one of the anchors repeatedly stated "Trump leaving the White House was like an exorcism!!!" Those were his exact words -- do these people know how stupid they sound?
When asked by one intrepid reporter why the Biden Plan to administer 100 million doses of covid vaccine in 100 days wasn't more ambitious, since the daily threshold to meet that goal was achieved while Trump was still the President, Biden's response was, "Gimme a break, man," while his press secretary admitted, "We're not mathematicians."
Is there anyone out there who doesn't hear that and go, "Oh no..."
PSAKI: “Well, none of us are mathematicians, myself included, so I asked our team to do a little math on this. The Trump Administration was given 36 million doses when they were in office for 38 days. They administered a total of about 17 million shots. That’s about less than 500,000 shots a day. What we are proposing is to double that to about one million shots per day. And we have outlined this goal and objective in coordination and consultation with our health and medical experts, so it is ambitious. It’s something that we feel is bold and was called that certainly at the time. And we’re working overtime to help to achieve it, try to achieve it.”
Did you think the vaccine distribution, or frankly any other system, would start at full capacity?
I mean that's some serious lying with statistics there by Jen Psaki. Maybe if she had used the last two weeks of data (I'm sure her team has the numbers), she might have reached a different conclusion.
Like I said. She's uninformed so she uses a lot of words to construct a lie. Here, she cites the average number of vaccines administered since the first day the vaccines were available, as if that is in any way relevant.
A very good follow-up question, if the Press was at all interested in exposing the truth, (and this administration's obvious lack of prep) would have been, "Jen, how many vaccine doses were administered *yesterday*?" Maybe her friends at CBS News could have cited their own story from January 13 where they cite close to 1 million doses a day.
I was thinking that they did - something like shouldn't we be more aggressive with our goal to be able to give more shots and then something about how long it was going to take us to get everyone vaccinated. Anyway - hopefully, she'll get more adept with a little time. I am glad we are back to getting daily press briefings. And we should be asking the tough questions. Maybe the press is out of practice?
Also - just as an aside, a lot of people don't want to get the vaccine. Is anyone addressing that issue?
And - I was wondering what happened with the story about how there were supposed to be vaccines released but then somehow the government didn't have the doses they said they were holding back. What happened with that? And maybe it is an issue of getting more doses? I'm sure they want to get as many people vaccinated as possible. Maybe we need to ask questions about the availability of doses and staffing, too.
Anyone talking about vaccines for any kind of cold, flu or sars virus doesn't know what they are talking about. Why do you think they provide flu vaccines every year? Because they are vaccinating people - who are dumb enough to get a vaccine - for last year's flu strain. Not for the flu they are about to get, if they do get it. Oh - and btw - there is no vaccine effective for the cold, which is the same virus as sars. To the extent there may be a vaccine for covid-19, it will last only until this strain mutates, which will be the next cold/flu season. This is the state of scientific illiteracy that infects our entire society -no ability to think, reason or cogitate for themselves. The only way to deal with a sars virus like this one is prophylactic - vitamin D, C and zinc; good personal hygiene - handwashing, staying home when sick and sneezing into an elbow, as simplistic as that sounds. And, then building immunity, which sticking gross cotton petri dishes over your face for hours on end and impeding your oxygen flow is absolutely counterproductive to.
They are LYING to you about this "vaccine" to have a way to explain why they are going to lift the lockdowns that were only around to try to demolish one person's election.
I realize there is no vaccine that is effective for coronavirus and influenza. I thought that the point of vaccination is to train your body to better fight off a similar type of virus. Boosters are common, no? Does it really hurt to get a vaccine? Are you in the health or bio research sector? I was wondering when they told everyone to stay home to flatten the curve how that was going to work long term. I hope they are working on antiviral drugs.
So you really think that they are lying about vaccines so that they could do lockdowns which would keep trump from getting elected? What about all of the people who have died though?
Of course it can hurt to get a vaccine. There are many cases of people having their immune system destroyed from a flu vaccine. I once had such a bad reaction from a cholera shot I almost died. Your natural immune system can also train itself to fight off a virus. The only question is whether the danger of the virus by % is greater than the danger from the vaccine by % and whether your natural immune system is better equipped to fight a particular virus. In most cases, like the flu, your natural immune system is. Which is why many doctors don't tell you to get a flu vaccine unless you are in a risk category which most of us aren't. But, if you are going to take a vaccine, like the covid one, with a 0.5% serious side effect likelihood to safeguard against a virus with a 0.05% illness rate, then I can sell you some stocks high so you can sell them low.
This isn't Psaki's first time in the ring, but you must know that. She had to cover for Hillary while at State. That virtually assured her of being the next Democrat Press Secy. No, I don't think she will get any better, because she suffers the worst of all flaws: she believes she's the smartest person in the room.
As for the vaccine, see the other commenter. Given this reality, the path to herd immunity requires a combination of vaccinations and transmission of the disease. Those who don't want the vaccine should be allowed to live as if there was no covid, at least once everyone who wants the vaccine gets it. Then you'll have the half of the country that's vaccinated and the other half that was exposed, and everybody has antibodies. Yay!
But most likely, covid is the new flu, and we all just have to get used to the idea that it's never going away for good.
The problem that I have with people living as if there is no covid is that that is not reality. People work around people that can die from covid. How would you keep them separated and safe? A lot of citizens have died and I don't like how most people don't seem to care.
As Samuel Clemens once famously quipped, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed." Regardless of how much we agree or disagree with what we read/see in the media, if we care enough about a story in these days of social media and instant online news (Facebook anyone?), we should do our due diligence and fact check on our own time.
Given the fact check sites are both fallible and fallacious or purposefully disseminating disinformation, how does one fact check in a desert of authoritative sources where journalism as a species facing extinction?
Once "they" turn off the money trough of patreon, substack and youtube "super chat" donations, what's next?
The corollary of manufacturing dissent is influencing dissent – for all we know, Matt Taibbi is a Russki, pinko sympathiser, deep sleeper agent awakened from a decade of slumber at a music magazine to lead the rebellion into a cul de sac of cancel-culture-conscious-carefully-crafted-criticism, acting like OxyContin for would-be Winston Smiths.
There are lots of ways to actually fact check. We are mostly just either too busy or lazy to do so. You can go to source material, as an example. For me, it was instructive to go to transcripts and/or full videos of Trump speeches or remarks to realize that what I was being told he said wasn't true. I have gone back to - yes - government source documents for budget #s or criminal justice statistics to see what's really happening with respect to where $ are flowing or whether unarmed black people really are being killed by cops in large numbers. (It's fascinating that you can get a wealth of #s through government stats gatherers that directly contradicts or undermines the media agenda. They think you won't check). Or, to understand the actual science of sars and whether masks are actually effective, I read medical journal articles, not news articles or CDC press releases. None of what they are telling us is supported by the scientific research (which, of course is imperfect, but even the best evidence we have contradicts what we are being told in the press and by policymakers).
But, this takes work. You can't rely on news "paraphrasing" for you. Or, wikipedia......
«You can go to source material, as an example. (It's fascinating that you can get a wealth of #s through government stats gatherers that directly contradicts or undermines the media agenda.»
Let's say I am familiar with how Economists "work". The good ones always look at the primary sources and question them, because many "processed" statistics are biased, and even the raw data collected is biased (often accidentally). Then they publish their results in obscure journals using heavily obfuscated language as the results are often detrimental to careers in departments of Economics heavily dependent on donations from the wealthy and business research contracts.
«They think you won't check)»
Of course they are right: almost everything we know as individuals is hearsay, inevitably, and therefore people's minds are predisposed to apply only rule-of-thumb checks to hearsay, being unable to verify it.
The most common rule-of-thumb applied by our minds is to trust that hearsay which seems repeated by multiple sources that seem independent. So for example if one person says "I saw John bribing Bob" is not trusted as much as a dozen people saying "I saw Jack/Jane/Bill/Kate/... bribing Bob".
So the "mainstream" ("centrist"/"whig"/right-wing) media rely on faking that: they repeat each other's talking points as if each were an independent witness. Sometimes it is just implicit collusion, sometimes it is explicit, as in when they repeat almost word for word the same implausible conspiracy theories as if they were all making a summary from a briefing from some security agency or another.
Agreed. I will say that I recognize even primary sources have inherent biases built in and and are imperfect. The methodology behind studies is also useful to check and try to cross-reference. As humans, we rarely can have perfect information or the "truth." But, we can come a LOT closer to reality by digging in by ourselves, verifying, checking and doing our own witnessing. One thing that I realize is that part of the "news" today is trying to get you to deny what you have seen or heard yourself. So, a big part of "detoxing" from that is trusting your own eyes and ears too. Problem is that if you think about a generation or two past and generations going forward, they have not/are not taught critical thinking or independent research skills (deliberately). So, we have millions of people who, very literally, can't do this work on their own.
But they don't. Fact checking now amounts to “have I bashed Trump enough?” However, even back in the days of fact checking I would still do research on what an article said was true. Take the whole “fat will kill you” religion magazines promoted some years ago. My late brother was a cancer surgeon and the rare doctor who would do his own research on every study that came to his desk. He was disgusted by the “fat in your diet will kill you” myth that was being pushed by the media - whose fact checkers okayed it because this is what a “major medical study” showed. My brother actually read the study and said there was no basis for this conclusion. And he was right. We all need to question what we're told. And now the Biden administration will call us terrorists for doing that and say we need to be put into “reeducation” camps so we just accept their propaganda.
Thank you. I'm amazed at how many educated “liberal” people I know accept what they read in mainstream media or what Fauci said or WHO or Wikipedia tells them. I can't believe the number of supposedly smart people I know who just regurgitate what they most recently read in NYT. I think it's worse than laziness on their part. I think these people have no real core values, or even sense of themselves, so they can't do critical thinking and venture out of their comfort zone - actually finding out about something terrifies them. It's fun to own your own brain, actually. I sent a link to this interview with the revered microbiologist Sucharit Bhakdi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVq_Eufr9fw to a longtime friend who blew up at me for listening someone other than Fauci because he said I was contributing to more Covid deaths. This friend, btw, didn't think it wise to actually watch it himself.
If I'm reading between your lines, or really just reading your lines, you're of the persuasion that Trump was doing good and making things happen. While I agree with your comments on finding authoritative sources, I would challenge you to cite the sources for your claims about Trump or masks or police violence and deaths.
Trump was doing some good and making some things happen. So, was Obama. Frankly, so was GWB. So was DDE for that matter. Doesn't mean I supported any of them 100% (or voted for any of them; well not old enough for DDE). But, I make up my own mind how to do so - and make up my own mind about my own health decisions rather than having some "expert" tell me without me questioning. And you are going to have to do your own work. I spend likely 10-15 hours a week going to source material. Transcripts, full-length videos, medical journals, government stat cites - uh, ever heard of the DOJ or dept. of Commerce? - are all out there. I'm not going to do your work for you by finding all the cites and spoon feeding you. One - how does that make you just listen to me, who you don't know, rather than listening to NPR or NYT or Fox, who you don't know. Two - I get paid $325 an hour for my time. You want to pay me $3 - $4K a week to do your work for you, I'll consider it.
ok, so you're a minimum wage cubicle dweller, I only wish the divide between the haves and have-nots were narrowing instead of widening with each successive and unsuccessful administration, but I wouldn't put Bush 1 and Eisenhower in the same sentence. (oops)
p.s. my question was to ask where and what is that "source material" of which you speak … government departments are not bastions of truth … FOIA revelations remind us, whistleblowers remind us … truth is not forthcoming …
If I'm reading between your lines, or really just reading your lines, you're of the persuasion that Trump was doing good and making things happen. While I agree with your comments on finding authoritative sources, I would challenge you to cite the sources for your claims about Trump or masks or police violence and deaths.
How does one become a credentialed fact checker? I understand that journalists get a piece of paper with BA slapped on it but what does a fact checker get? A newspaper folded into a hat that they can put on their heads?
no idea tardigrade, your wisdom will outlive us all, come "the big one", but I think your idea of a degreed professional "bachelor of facts and proof" is a seriously brilliant idea, like a public notary, someone held accountable for the recording of what is real and true, what is actual and factual, it's just so obvious, yet the role doesn't exist and if it did, like an actuary, people would complain "gosh, that seems expensive, you really didn't _do_ anything" … : )
"for all we know, Matt Taibbi is a Russki, pinko sympathiser, deep sleeper agent awakened from a decade of slumber"
Point taken, but I think he's OK.
The intelligence agencies are not as sophisticated as many assume. When they do shit on the internet, it is pretty heavy-handed and obvious; "glowies." That's not to say that there isn't still fuckery going about. Keep a sharp eye.
thanks for writing that – we're seeing the world through like eyes and just the word "fuckery" well used, makes me think you and I would be drinking buddies with Matt.
yeah, if I was in AA, my sponsor would have me on lockdown that night … but we're already on covid lockdown and the vaccines aren't going to stop this pandemic before the SOTU dog and pony show, so who gives? : )
I actually remember watching MT on the extended CSPAN author segment - where they visit for like...hours...and he mentioned at length how living in Russia had a deep influence on him as a journalist and writer in general. That interview closed the deal - transforming me from the off-hand ROLLING STONE read at the doctors to full-fledged trip to B&NOB'S for a fan-boy book buy
(always buy New for the real deal so they get paid - not Thriftbooks online)
It's an old chestnut, but I'm trotting it out: "Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms."
Have you read W. Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories? Great stuff about the vagaries, stupidities and quotidian dulllness of the intel biz circa WWI. Prefigures and (IMO) exceeds Le Carre'.
fwiw, I didn't suggest anyone was knowingly "aspiring" (?) to be a Winston Smith (to be honest, I had to google to remind myself of that character name, btw : ) but I would say many US citizens and voters are unwittingly on an oxycontin-like information regimen.
Yes, it's all moot. The people with time on their hands to yammer on here also have time, the education, and the access to find good sources. Many more people are interested in, for example, Fox News because they have blonds or in a celebrity they like, whose qualification to speak on politics is that they starred in a sitcom. Almost no one has the time to fact check. And you simply couldn't check everything even if you spent 24 hours a day doing it. The best you can do is find sources that have a high probability of at least attempting the truth. The lumpenproles aren't getting off their second job then searching through academic papers online or learning statistics. Give me a fucking break.
Check out Snopes on your “Mark Twain” quote. Not accurate. The attribution, that is. The quote is fine. Just remember that you’re perpetuating the “Oh dear, I can’t believe anything I read” mentality that got the Trump crowd into their current awakening.
I love you Matt, I really do. But I take sincere umbrage with your comparison of the current US corporate media to that of the USSR. Brezhnev’s media was nowhere near this toxic, this biased, this absurd! Brezhnev’s Pravda, Izvestia & Vremya were closer to Edward R. Murrow than to today’s NY Times or CNN! Yes, Stalin’s fantasy press pairs nicely with Rachel Meadow & Chris Cuomo, but please don’t sully the reputation of Brezhnev’s press with these people. It’s just not right, not fair.
Bear with me a bit while I provide a bit of a background to my relationship with the NYT. I grew up in the 1980s-1990s the offspring of an academic family (father a professor at a prominent university, mother a teacher). Naturally, as a center-left academic family, the NYT featured prominently on our breakfast table. I used to read the paper extensively, browsing the multiple sections in the Sunday Times. "Everyone" knew the NYT was the best paper in America, it spoke intelligently to an intelligent audience. While indisputably a liberal paper, you could still enjoy columnists with differing views and the journalism itself was top notch, and the various sections (Science, Architecture/Art, Food, Travel) were largely free of moralizing opinions.
Then, around 2000, while in college, I noticed something started to change at the NYT. It wasn't a sudden change but a gradual change in the tone of the paper's articles and columnists. While my parents were your liberal academics, my larger family came from a variety of places, small town rural America, Reagan/Bush suburban professionals, working class union Democrats and I like to think close exposure with this range of Americans kept me open minded and realistic about everyday America. And while we could disagree over policy, no one ever questioned that we were all Americans and no one questioned the validity of anyone else's life experience.
Except the NYT. Sometime around 2000, I started realizing the Times was treating the rest of America outside the liberal Upper West Side echelons (and those elsewhere who allied with that mindset) as somewhat odd and foreign. It was as if the Times' journalists were viewing the rest of America, and actually, even large parts of NYC itself (the old immigrant boroughs, Long Island and so forth) the way a biologist analyses strange new bacteria through a microscope lens. And it became clearer that the NYT's journalists and columnists didn't see themselves as the same Americans as the rest of the Americans they periodically wrote about. When they wrote about various American subjects, it was written less about fellow countrymen, but a different people entirely. The irony was that the NYT itself is the weird little bacteria in the middle of America but they took the opposite attitude!
When I realized that, it ended my love affair with the NYT. It wasn't overnight, it was a gradual process that took some years. Then, of course, we have seen in the last four years the NYT frankly and openly admit it no longer regards objectivity a principle in journalism. This disease, the isolation of elite journalism from everyday America, has spread quickly and extensively to all other major mainstream papers and TV/internet news. Matt has already covered this with his echo chamber article.
An aristocracy, as the elite Americans have become, is not inherently a bad thing. There has always been an element of an aristocracy in America, a consensus among the nation's elite. The problem emerges when the aristocracy is not just out of touch with the broader swathes of its fellow population, but disdainful of the same people. The men and women who control most of the nation's media and their allies in social media and higher education and increasingly now in the corporate world are extremely disdainful of much of America, disparage their way of thinking without even bothering to try to understand it, and use their institutions to be openly hostile. I don't think the American upper classes has ever been so openly hateful of half their countrymen.
A major reason behind MAGAism and the 74 million Trump voters is that they clearly saw this hatred towards them and this widespread attempt to shunt this America out of sight.
This has been my exact experience with the NYT, though I'm a bit younger so I grew up with it in the 90s and 2000s and subscribed on my own when I went to college in 2010. I was a devoted reader all through college and young adulthood - I knew it was a liberal paper but I agreed with a lot of their opinions and reading what everyone knew to be the best paper in America (lol) made me feel grown up and informed. I'm from NYC so it was also my "local paper."
Around 2015 I started to notice the wheels coming off with the breathless and deadly serious coverage of Trump, who looked like an obvious troll/comedian to me from the start. The fawning portrayal of the Amazon headquarters destined for Long Island City was the last straw - I lived five minutes away from LIC and I could see with my own two eyes that their portrayal of the neighborhood as some blighted wasteland desperately in need of a Silicon Valley takeover was complete hogwash. Why should one of the largest companies in the world need a massive tax subsidy to open an office in an already popular neighborhood in the largest city in America? Every company has an office in New York City. Many of them have offices in Long Island City, e.g. Citi Bank. The idea that we, NYC taxpayers, should be subsidizing the richest man in the world in order to "convince" him to open a new office in the freaking BUSINESS CAPITAL OF AMERICA completely broke my brain. Meanwhile my precious NYT seemed to be drooling over Bezos with zero critical reflection. I think my disillusionment with the NYT had been percolating for years but for some reason this story put me over the edge and suddenly the entire paper looked completely ridiculous. I began to see how little their "Bobos-in-paradise" worldview resembled what I knew from, like you, having friends and family outside upper middle class coastal academic enclaves.
Question: what paper do you read now? I have been reading the Wall Street Journal recently, though their opinion section makes my eyes roll out of my head. I think their news reporting is still decent but it's so hard to tell these days. I wish there was a paper without any opinion section at all.
I read dozens of news sites, everything from NYT to QAnon. I find it interesting to see how people think - or that they don't think at all. I don't fear ideas different than mine will somehow infect me, and find it weird so many of my left friends do. I especially find it weird when leftist young people say they just won't read something because it's too dangerous. My conclusion is *they* are terrified they'll lose their leftist faith. And honestly, for NYT to say the QAnon is dangerous conspiracy theory is just hilarious.
As Jimmy Dore has pointed out, Russiagate is the liberal Qanon. Most liberals are just to thick to realize it. What the Trump presidency has taught me is liberals, despite their college educations, are every bit as butt ignorant as the caricature they use to mock rural right wingers.
And, for a group that seems obsessed with their own feelings, they seem to lack a remarkable amount of self awareness. In other words, liberals appear to be dumb enough to wholeheartedly believe their own bullshit.
It’s possible the excess carbon dioxide they inhale as they sleep with their mask on doesn’t enhance their cognitive development in the least.
Hmmm...I think it's more complex than just saying Qanon is the Russiagate of the right. I like Jimmy Dore and always agree with him, but I think a better comparison would be that "stop the steal" is the Russiagate of the right/Trump world. Both are conspiracy theories with the goal of de-legitimizing legitimate election victories. Russiagate for the Hillary crowd, "stop the steal" for Trump supporters.
Qanon tries to be all encompassing, so it approaches cult status as it represents a worldview rather than a single conspiracy. What exactly did Dore say about Russiagate being the liberal Qanon? I can't believe someone as smart as him would simplify it so much.
I think Dore was just responding to Clinton & Pelosi's insane idea to convene a 911 style commission to investigate those Trump/Russia ties that they couldn't prove with 4 years of investigations while Trump was in office. Pelosi, on Hillary's podcast, said "With Trump, all roads lead to Putin." They're both convinced that the Capitol protesters were doing Putin's bidding, etc.
I do believe it's on this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLdz9-fdp8o
I think his point was that the Dems, along with their media propaganda wing, are the biggest pushers of conspiracy theories out there yet their cult of partisan true believers are completely unaware that they're being sold inventions.
It's because these people are dumb. Same as the Qanon believers. My sister buys into a lot of this garbage (the lefty crap, not Qanon) and I know her IQ is slightly above 100. That means that objectively, half the country is even dumber than that. It's enough to not just make me want a drink, but want a nice juicy shot of heroin. The good news, sort of, is bread and circuses.
That said, I do believe that Trump was and is corrupt AF, but other than the nature of his non-political businesses (i.e., not a Clinton Foundation or the like) which he definitely benefited during his presidency, he's no different from any of the others. His business dealings and frank nature just took the mask off where a polite guy like Obama could hold the act down long enough and wait to profit immensely AFTER he left office.
Thanks. They're insane. The MSM managed to infect my dad with the whole Russiagate BS and it's the same as Q. Nothing will convince him otherwise. I'm just glad that it was only a single "incident" or election year and that they've finally shut up about it (for now).
Oh boy ... the election. Yes, it was stolen. Any smart person who examined the evidence knows it but Americans don't want to think about how bad it's gotten. They prefer Left vs Right rather than Totalitarian vs Individual Rights. Why has Orwell's 1984 stayed in the top 5 bestselling books for months on Amazon? Okay, you are all a wonderfully smart bunch and of course anyone who reads Matt or Glenn Greenwald would be but I need to grill my husband some Argentinian style steaks with chimichurri sauce and duck fat potatoes. Looking forward to seeing you on Matt's next.
This election was no more marred with fraud than any other election. The dead have been voting in elections for as long as I have been alive, and probably many times that 50 years. That said, this election the fraud probably made a difference. It deserves investigation and until it is properly investigated, people are tuning out of the system. It's a bad state of affairs for a democracy. As long as people buy into "my vote makes a difference" you are doing ok. After that is gone, it's just oppression, and we all know where that leads.
"Why has Orwell's 1984 stayed in the top 5 bestselling books for months on Amazon?"
Orwell was prescient, but not prescient enough. He didn't predict that Big Brother was just out to make another dime.
...too thick...arrrrrgh!
And a stutter....yeesh!
Wouldn't an edit feature be nice?
"And honestly, for NYT to say the QAnon is dangerous conspiracy theory is just hilarious."
Granting credibility to QAnon is a litmus test for gullibility: if someone takes QAnon seriously, they're gullible. QAnon presents a classic non-falsifiability trap, and practically mandates that its adherents draw on various uncriticalassumptions and factoids to fill in the voluminous blanks between its threadbare factual disclosures and murky hints and insinuations. It's a model of how to yank people's chains.
And to the extent that it's taken seriously and obtains power and influence, QAnon is potentially dangerous. Although my best guess is that the election of Marjorie Greer and Lauren Boebert marks the high tide of the QAnon "movement", which deserves to fade away into well-deserved ignominy.
I don't take QAnon or NYT seriously. I fail to see, though, how NYT isn't more dangerous, given their massive peddling of Russiagate and suppression of the Hunter Biden.
"suppression of the Hunter Biden."
Hunter himself has been anything but suppressed. Bow before the Prince.
Haha! I meant the Hunter Biden scandal.
There’s a Reddit group called Q Anon Casualties. It’s a support group for people whose marriages, families and friendships have been annihilated by this collective psychosis. Obviously Russiagate is damaging, all these variants of “nepravda” are cancerous. But the Q thing has a death cult quality that exceeds the realms of state propaganda and shitty journalism. I recommend you check out the Reddit group to observe the scope of madness. It’s not just about Trump. The “crisis of meaning” has reached a fever pitch.
Thank you for the Reddit suggestion. Interesting. One thing that struck me is most don't seem to take any personal responsibility. They just blame QAnon. But at least the ex QAnons know they're casualties. I know a number of Trump haters who are just as psychotic and have wrecked just as much as the ex QAnons at least admit to. The Trump haters just don't realize it. It's Trump's fault. They keep talking about how Trump supporters need to be reprogrammed. They should all look in the mirror, get themselves reprogrammed, stop watching CNN, reading NYT and get Trump out of their heads and move on. If an ex-President is still the biggest thing in your life you need help.
And the same thing isn't happening to NYT readers? Don't they cut off family ties etc. too? Haven't marriages been ruined over who voted for Trump?
Ooh! Thanks I’m definitely checking it out. I think the diff between Russiagate & Qanon is that R-gate had the potential to get us into another cold war or arms race with Russia. It was taken serious by the letters agencies & powerful people. Q only effects individuals and to the effect it affects real world events like 1/6. Im not sure that was primarily Q driven so much as it was by Trump and his band of crooks. The greatest danger in all that seemed to be the Lin Wood types who had massive followings and was affecting voters and stirring people up with Stop The Steal.
Qanon is an influencer status-seeking racket that is based on the $ generated via clicks, views, likes, shares, follows and even merchandise. The whole thing is a scam which should have stayed what it is: entertainment. Problem is too many Americans (and others) are so gullible and looking for a unifying "theory of everything" to explain the evils they perceive in the world and Q is a good distraction from the policies of the corporate Democrats (who work for the same economic interests as the right) and the Republicans. Both constitute two different segments of The War Party.
There seems to be different levels of Qanon, from political analysis(which can be pretty keen) to the inner circle which is totally weird (JFK Jr. is still alive, lizard people, political clones etc.). It was never right wing in the traditional sense( American exceptionalism)but reverted back to a certain protectionism which is attractive to many on the disaffected left who are tired of the pseudo-left politics of corporate Democrats. In the end Qanon at least gave a platform to the dissident left that was often banned on YouTube where anyone that questions the motives or wisdom of Dr. Fauci or the Gates Foundation has been systematically censored.
I will preface this by saying that I am not deeply into QAnon and speak from a position of relative ignorance,
but it intrigues me that it seems to pit the military/military intelligence against civilian intelligence/The Establishment. Mike Flynn is a martyr figure. DIA vs. CIA.
Yep. Agree. I think it's normal to search for a unifying “theory of everything” - but at QAnon??? Try listening to JS Bach instead.
A more cynical reading of QAnon is that its a public Team Red reaction to CRT/BLM... if all conservatives can be labeled "Racists" then all liberals can be labled "Pedophiles." After all, what would be worse in 2021: being compared to David Duke or Jeffrey Epstein?
The question becomes, which faction believes its conspiracy theory more than the other?
Intriguing theory. CRT is institutionalized and likely more harmful in the long run. If Q blames elites for all ills CRT blames White people for all ills.
I’ve listened to Marjorie Taylor Green and she is a fool. The Republicans need to shut her up, censor her or something. Not sure. They need to do some house cleaning like W.F. Buckley did with the John Birchers in the 60’s.
I agree with all of that. I like reading things that piss me off or that people tell me are bad and scary. I don't know how people got this idea that simply being exposed to a concept means you will suddenly start believing it. It's really bizarre. I just don't want to spend all my free time reading news sites so I would like to find a decent source for dry, basic news coverage that I can check when I want an idea of what's going on in the world without sifting through too much ideology, you know?
>>I don't know how people got this idea that simply being exposed to a concept means you will suddenly start believing it. It's really bizarre.
I was raised in a fundamentalist church, believing God created the universe in 6 days and all that. So I can relate to people who believe exposure to certain facts and opinions can be "dangerous"--that's precisely how I used to feel when exposed to texts about evolution.
Polly is exactly right. Leftism has morphed into a religion, a carefully constructed one that cannot withstand exposure to critical arguments.
Perhaps the so-called "leftism" of certain identity politics activists in liberal arts college. But true leftism has mostly been crushed by the corporate right and center, both of which continue to re-define leftism to suit their own political and economic agendas. Try starting a labor union at a "liberal" corporation like Alphabet or Apple. LOL, THAT is leftism.
Alphabet workers did it but since they can't actually conceive of an adversarial relationship between labor and capital it's essentially a social justice advocacy club. Check out this mission statement, it's absolutely wild from a "labor" perspective: https://alphabetworkersunion.org/principles/mission-statement/
This is why leftist politics is currently on life support. All of the people in this union genuinely believe they're doing leftism right now when they're actually begging capital to make itself look even friendlier to their cultural ideology while asking for literally no material concessions. This is a group of people who think labor organizing is for ending identity-based "oppression" in the workplace and for winning the right to be a conscientious objector to work projects. They think their interests and their employer's can perfectly align if they just try a little harder to make the case for "not being evil." The idea that their employer's interests and their own cannot possibly be aligned because one represents capital and the other labor would break their brains.
Try starting a labor union at an intelligence agency.
Legally, you can't.
No, leftism and righism have morphed into centrism. What you call left are Reagan democrats and corporate 3rd way dems who bought into the whole empire trip that the neocons were selling.
Okay. I invite you to consider that Christianity has hundreds, maybe thousands, of denominations; and many of them believe they alone know the truth. "No true Christian" believes dancing is okay, and so on.
I know the woke = religion analogy has been done to death at this point but that's because it rings so true. I wasn't raised religious, in fact my parents came from two very different religious backgrounds that essentially negated each other, so I've never understood the religious mindset on a personal level. I guess that's why I have so much trouble understanding the people on the left who suddenly think this way about conservative or even non-mainstream leftist news. It just doesn't make any sense.
Woke thought gained traction on social media, a fundamentally toxic medium. It used to be the vanguard left held these discussions in the rarefied air of academia, and there was a longer, more critical process. The cultural combinations of 24/7 news, personal branding and instantaneous expectations accelerated the process of identity politics discourse to an unnatural state in which you’re expected to know and properly use a vernacular that’s still developing! My point is that the ideologies of people aren’t inherently bad, but the medium we use (the internet) to communicate those ideologies and hold each other accountable for ideological adherence is breaking our brains. The internet has made discourse chaotic, aggressive and—most of all—performative. The way to get attention on Twitter is to be bold and narrow minded, to make grand proclamations. Nuance is dead. Imagine being exposed to thousands of Twitter threads 30 years ago. You’d think the world of the future was a hellacious nightmare in which everyone is a paranoid psychotic.
Good luck with finding when, where, what, why, who journalism now in a national paper. That's why I enjoy reading local news - not just mine but around the country. We recently had a local newspaper story about a French Bulldog falling over a neighborhood cliff, getting rescued by a Fireman and it was just great. What happened. When it happened. Where it happened. Why it happened (Frenchie got loose from leash). Who (photo of Frenchie in arms of Fireman).
Yes, that is my favorite type of news. Because it's about local, real people. Not abstract concepts far away. We are missing that connection in the major news sources these days.
Got a link?
Realclearpolitics.com, it features titles and links to articles from the left to the right. You’ll get all kinds of news from Slate & the NYTs to the National Review and the NY Post. I’ve seen substack links to Taibbi’s & GG articles, all kinds of views featured there. Unfortunately, you can’t get the news from 1 trusted source anymore. You have to read a rang of sources to get to a proximate of truth(ish) news. It’s what we have to deal with in a biased, divided world.
I subscribe to this to get the major news stories and to see which side is covering what: https://ground.news
«I just don't want to spend all my free time reading news sites so I would like to find a decent source for dry, basic news coverage that I can check when I want an idea of what's going on in the world without sifting through too much ideology, you know?»
Are you willing to pay $10,000 a year for that? Or at least $1,000 a year?
Or do you want for people to spend a lot of time and risk a lot investigating issues and writing informative, unbiased briefs on them for you, all paid for by themselves, with no advantage for them?
Of course I would be willing to pay for it! $10,000 a year seems ridiculous but I would pay at least a few hundred for it. I already pay for one paper for around $400 a year and I subscribe to plenty of substacks and patreons. I pay for email services because I don't want Google invading my privacy. Good information & digital services are worth every penny.
...if it is the only concept allowed to be presented like Twitter, Face Book. Wikipedia. google (censors sites)
Larry Sanger says Wikipedia Badly Biased.
https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/
After doing research for my book on QAnon, I believe QAnon is dangerous. While the criminality is overstated by msm, the violence is real (kidnapping to murder, based on people buying into Q conspiracies). There are other real dangers in that the movement is hateful in its rhetoric, and fueled by irrationality. Its core theory about HRC and the satanic cabal who kidnap, torture, rape, kill and eat children is one huge lie, one that uses real pedophilia for support. The QAnon leaders offer theories without evidence, have no epistemic humility, and present a binary fueled image of Trump (the messiah) against the barbarians who oppose Trump. Anyway, check out my book: The QAnon Deception. (And, yes, I do know that QAnon has some valid points but these genuine points come from other sources that QAnon duplicates). James Beverley, Professor
Professor, I don't think there are many people here who believe Qanon is real. It's nice that you wrote a book debunking it but you must know that you'll be preaching to the converted? True believers will do what, in my experience, they always do which is accuse you of being in on it or of being an academic running interference for it.
Qanon, with its ideas of satanic pedophiles, while a right wing conspiracy now, used to be, during the Bush years, a left wing fueled conspiracy theory. It was driven by accusations around a man named Larry King and the Franklin Savings & Loan scandal. King allegedly pimped out young boys from Boys Town to elites in the Republican Party.
This was also tied into stories of alleged abuse that occurred in day cares that emerged in the 80s which was, if you remember, a huge scandal for a while. People did real jail time based on quite insane allegations. The only one that comes to mind involves the Pope flying in on a hot air balloon & spiriting young children away to a church for satanic ritual rape.
In my estimation, the difference between the left & right wing theories hinges on that idea of Satan. The right wing version emphasizes the Satan part of it, inferring that elites are literally worshipping Satan. The left wing side emphasized the ritual abuse part, with Satan being an extraneous detail. The ritual abuse was used as a tool to shatter a child's personality for purposes of mind control. This then led to MKultra, something called Project Monarch and other projects that I no longer remember.
Other than extraneous details, like placing Trump as an avenging patriot, the stories are incredibly similar because, in my estimation, conspiracy theories never really die they just change sides depending on who holds the reins of power.
You also must understand that what has emerged around the arrest & subsequent suicide/murder of Jeffrey Epstein was like a jet of kerosene on the satanic pedophile conspiracy fire. The number of elite movers & shakers, Trump included, who were cozy with Epstein is quite phenomenal. The accusations, some quite credible, that Epstein was an intelligence asset doing the government's good work, are hard to ignore.
The fact that Epstein allegedly recorded every bit of sexual activity on his island, yet not one recording has emerged is, again, more fuel for the fire.
To say that there's no evidence is a bit disingenuous. There's tons of "evidence," it's just that the evidence is open to interpretation. And, in some cases like Epstein's first arrest, is quashed by powerful people in powerful places.
You also must understand that we live in a system now where corporate & state power are so inextricably intertwined that they're almost indistinguishable. The news media is comprised, primarily, of two opposing camps who spin their "news" based more on their audience demographic than on what's true. In other words they feed us a nonstop stream of biased bullshit.
This "truth void" leaves a nice big blank space for people to fill in as they see fit. Some people have found the Qanon crayon to be to their liking.
Hopefully you've covered all of this in your book. If, on the other hand, you've kept it focused on Qanon & the right wing, I have to say that your book will be pretty useless. I could lie and say I'll read it but I probably won't. While the conspiracy motivations might be faulty, many of the stories about kidnapped & raped children are all too real. Quite frankly prof, I don't have the stomach for it any more.
Finally, you must realize that Qanon is being used as food for the Neo-liberal wing's new found censorship monkey. I have to tell you prof, there are only two sides to the censorship debate. You're either for free speech or you're against it. If you're against it you're a fascist, plain & simple. When you say that Qanon has led to real world murder I'd say that the numbers are probably quite negligible when placed against the murders that resulted from government approved conspiracy theories like "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction." Yet no one wants to censor the government and its war machine.
Indeed. I was trying to research about Qanon because, oddly enough, everyone I know who voted for Trump has never heard of Qanon. They have no clue what it is. And yet, I’ve heard the movement linked to Trump voters. I found a podcast that features Travis View who researches conspiracy theories and he would fly out and go to qanon rally’s. He tape recorded them and interviewed people there. The speakers at these rally’s sound crazy and insane. Most of them came off as new age types and not at all evangelical christians (which is how msm describes them). There is one guy who thinks he’s fathered children with aliens and talks about being a star child!!!?! A christian person would view that as satanic. So, I have no clue why they’re making Q people out to be average Trump supporting Christians. It is a cult and the people are crazy but I don’t think there’s very many of them nor do I think it’s the average Trump voter.
I think that's because Qanon is more like a rallying point for differing conspiracy views rather than an overarching philosophy.
My problem with how Qanon is framed in the media is that it's being used as a rallying point for liberal censorship boffins.
In my experience censorship boffins usually can't find their butt crack with both hands & a flashlight.
For example, in Britain, there was a censorship boffin named Mary Whitehouse. She was instrumental in the creation of Britain's video nasties list that banned, primarily, low budget horror films under the grounds that they were harmful to children & British society. She also campaigned against imagery & themes in British TV shows such as Dr. Who that she found harmful for the same reasons.
Ironically though, the one TV personality she felt was just wonderful & beyond reproach was Jimmy Saville who we now know was one of Britain's biggest pervert pedophiles.
As a Trump voter, I would say you are correct on both points. I've said this before: when Mike Pence was asked about Qanon and he claimed to not know what it was, he wasn't lying. Qanon's influence has been grossly inflated by the media looking for more villains. Conversely, Qanon's popularity has also been fueled by the same media coverage. The media has the same effect on mass shootings, and they happily profit from it.
I think you know exactly why the media is making Qanon out to be average Trump supporting Christians.
K.M.
The QAnon movement is large so I believe it includes some evangelicals. Dave Hayes (aka the Praying Medic) is a leader in that camp. Yes, there are really wild views connected to Q as well.
Dear Spiderbaby,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply. Several points:
1. Yes, I realize my critique of QAnon will not go over well with most followers. I was on a radio show the end of December and got the standard ad hominem attacks from Q believers.
2. I agree with your points about the symmetry between left- and right-wing conspiracies. And I do remember the Satanic panic of the 80s.
3. I realize the power of the Epstein scandal and comment on it in my book. My claim about lack of evidence has to do with the specific view that HRC, Barack, and company run an international child trafficking ring in cahoots with the Pope, Queen Elizabeth, etc. I do not think that notion of pedophilia is true.
4. I share your realization of bias in the news media.
5. I do not accept your logic that my book would be useless if it just focused on QAnon and the right wing. A book does not have to be omni-directional to be useful. In any case, you will be happy to know that I reference left-wing items.
6. I am for free speech and despise the way that our culture negates it.
7. Yes, the killings related to QAnon are minor in contrast to the killing machinery of modern states.
Thanks for the reply. I'm glad you understand that it wasn't an attack. I swam in the left wing waters back of that pedo theory back in the early 21st century. I have an annoying tendency to push back against whatever I'm told. My wife likes to say I just like to play devil's advocate. I tend to think that it's just because I'm sort of an asshole. I pushed back against the left wing version. Didn't go well. I did the same, although superficially, against Qanon in 2016. Didn't go well either. I avoid those pools now. Not worth the hassle &, I realized that even if you kick out one leg of a conspiracy's support structure, the true believers will be nailing 2 legs in its place before the one you kicked out hits the ground.
Good luck with your book though.
If the country did more reading & less clicking it would instantly be a better country.
The best conspiracies always contain a grain of truth. Hence why the Jeffery Epstein scandal added fuel to the Q conspiracies. Now there’s a bunch of stories coming out in France about the left intellectuals there who have been accused left and right of pedophilia and incest. Except the stories are true and the accusations are coming from the victims themselves. So more fertile grounds to build more conspiracies.
I would love for the professor to tell us all the real world murders done by QAnon. Sounds like the professor is living in the opposite fantasy world to QAnon. Maybe we should call it the "NonQAnon" cult. You get 2 cults for the price of one. One that is whacko (QAnon) and the other that is equally whacko about the QAnon whacko's somehow secretly murdering and promoting Trump. What a total joke.
Gary
I am not sure what to make of your ad hominem attack. What is the "opposite fantasy world"? Is that a suggestion that I just made up the notion that murders can be traced to QAnon. On that one, look up the killing by Anthony Comello of Francisco Cali.
Satanism did play a role in the Mcmartin preschool fiasco. Those social workers "coached" it out of the kids along with the fake molestation stories.
Technically you're right but the left wing conspiracy folk I was talking to on the web didn't dwell on that aspect. It was primarily the mind control angle that they dwelled on The social workers were primarily evangelical Christians who saw Satan everywhere.
It wasn't just the social workers. The investigators were following the lead of evangelicals who they viewed as more knowledgable about crimes they saw as occult in nature. Even their interviews were filled with incredibly leading questions. Kids were even bribed to give the "proper answer." It was a huge clusterfuck.
i assume your book addresses why Qanon exists at all. Does it have anything to do with the perceived (and very real) bias of the mainstream media, and the relentless campaign to distort reality so as to always portray Democrats as "good" and Republicans as "bad?" I know almost nothing about Qanon - most conservatives know less about it than most liberals, I wager - but that would be my guess.
To be fair Mike, right wing media just flips the narrative.
I think the real issue for people like you & me is the left/right divide is no longer relevant.
I don't think that the people on top give a shit about either left or right.
They just care about power.
We're the rubes that they sell left/right conflict too.
And they're fucking good at it.
I do share your concerns about over inflating Qanon because that's the kind of target the censors will initially aim at because they're easy.
I don't know...it's a fine line...
I wish I had an answer.
Sure, sure. But there's much less right-wing media. You have to go looking for it; it's not omnipresent. Let's not forget Antifa is not "just an idea," like Biden would have us believe. Extremism exists everywhere, on all sides, and it can be weaponized, but rarely contained. That's the danger in cultivating it, which both Democrats and Republicans have participated equally.
QAnon is rooted in part in hatred of msm.
QAnon is a joke. If you want to make jokes dangerous then go right ahead. Remember those folks that all killed themselves in San Diego because they were going to rid on a comet to some utopia. Was that dangerous? Sure it was, but if people want to believe in fantasy worlds, who can stop them. What I can't believe is that someone would spend their time writing a book about QAnon. What a waste of time.
"If you want to make jokes dangerous then go right ahead."
There must be some psychological reason why "The Joker," a villain in Batman comic books (specifically intended for children) first appearing in 1940, has become a cult hero on the internet. Hollywood also likes to make expensive movies about The Joker in which he is the dashing protagonist. Joker I (1989, Burton), Joker II (2008, Nolan), Joker III (2019, Phillips).
"if people want to believe in fantasy worlds, who can stop them."
uh, you called this one. It's their fantasy world and everybody else is going to have to live it it.
I hate it when I start agreeing with Fredric Wertham. Comic Book America is becoming the reigning paradigm.
Gary...why is it a waste of time writing a book about a very popular movement, one that has dangerous elements, and has not received any major book length investigation?
By the way professor, saying your book was useless was a poor choice of words. It would probably be something I wouldn't read because I always preferred the left wing version of this beast since it had a lot more nuance. Qanon , quite frankly, has so many gaping holes in it that you could drive a fleet of semis through its main tenets. It's littered with prediction after prediction that never come true. These are then followed up with more predictions that never come true. The alleged "code" in the Podesta emails is so subjective as to be useless. If I'm not mistaken there are only a few accepted "interpreters" of Q's cryptic utterances. It always struck me as more LARP than cult but that's my personal view.
One of the problems with QAnon is there are few boundaries to determine what is part of the movement's ideology...hence, the long list of conspiracy theories as sub-sets. My book lists 25 major QAnon "interpreters" but there are more. All 25 have large audiences.
Makes it convenient then to lump any dissenting view into a Qanon category. Is Qanon literally anyone who opposes one-party rule by Democrats? Seems likely.
My incredibly superficial take on Qanon was that it contained many sub groups. That is a lot of interpreters though. Do they all agree or is there bickering? Y'know, you've piqued my interest. I'm always looking for reading material since I don't watch TV or have much of an internet presence. I may just take your book out for a spin.
Who are the Qanon leaders? I thought they were anonymous.
Dear K.M.
Q is anonymous though is probably Jim or Ron Watkins, who run the 8kun site where the Posts first appear.
Early on various teachers/promoters went public and have become well-known and in some cases wealthy off of Q merchandise.
Jim
PS. A picky note: the standard now is to write QAnon.
Thank you - I will order a copy of your book today from our local Indie bookstore.
Right on Polly. Yes, absolutely, one needs to intentionally read (or at least sample) news and opinion from across the spectrum or you can be taken hostage by a particular viewpoint, as is the case with many (esp on the Left) today, as you point out.
Polly, if I may, which of the many sites you follow do you find to be the most reliable and/or illuminating and/or informative?
Hi AHamilton, a long reply :-) It's all about what I want to know. I'd like to give you one news place that does it all, but I can't. I don't use NYT for anything now except to read what crazy talking points the Dems/Swamp elites are using today. For actual grounded political commentary I follow responsible journalists like Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Andy Ngo - who's been amazingly brave in his reporting on Antifa. The New York Post has been awfully good and awfully censored about the Hunter/Joe Biden grift. I think Tucker Carlson has been really good at reporting on DC recently. He's the only credible one on Fox, CNN or any other major network news. I think the biggest issue right now is the slavery and genocide against the Uyghurs and Falun Gong that's been going on in China - which should deeply disturb everyone - the Left media has been largely just paying lip service to it while looking the other way because of CCP power and money. This will go down as one of the most disgraceful eras in US media. For them to harp on American slavery, which was over a long time ago, or Trump as Hitler when the Hitler died over 75 years ago while ignoring this genocide boggles my mind. So I look to Epoch Times for coverage. A leftist friend recently told me she can't believe Epoch Times on the slavery/torture/sterilization of Uyghur women because she was told by Wikipedia it's extreme right wing misinformation. I explained to her that ET is owned by a Falun Gong member and they know firsthand the genocide of the CCP. I pointed out to her the tweet by the CCP boasting about sterilizing Uyghur women. She said “But Epoch Times is pro-Trump.” I said “Show me anyone who's escaped communism who isn't pro-Trump. You can't. That doesn't invalidate their reporting of the genocide.”She won't talk to me now. Real accounts of the real horrors going on involve too much soul searching for the liberals. They'd have to give up Netflix, their iPhones ... so they're coddled into collaboration with the genocide by the MSM.
Thanks for your engaged reply, Polly. We are, I think, very much on the same wavelength in terms of what constitutes a reliable source. Tucker and Glenn Greenwald (and our beloved Matt) are seemingly spread out on the political spectrum, but ultimately I see them as varying stripes of a sort we might call traditional liberals, people whose commitment to some notion of fairmindedness and factual truth outweighs their commitment to any particular ideology or narrative. That is so important, and increasingly rare in these hyperpolarized times.
" They'd have to give up Netflix, their iPhones"
That's my favorite irony of Antifa & crew. They loudly voice opposition to slavery practices that are long dead while documenting "their struggles" using iPhones that are made by some form of slavery.
I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics they have to go through to keep from collapsing into a puddle of existential goo.
Cognitive dissonance really isn't a big enough umbrella to hide under.
"I can't even imagine the mental gymnastics they have to go through to keep from collapsing into a puddle of existential goo"
I don't think there's a lot of mental gymnastics going on here, bud. Only the next click.
Tucker Carlson and Epoch Times. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
"A leftist friend recently told me she can't believe Epoch Times on the slavery/torture/sterilization of Uyghur women because she was told by Wikipedia it's extreme right wing misinformation."
But that isn't the case. You can read the Wikipedia entry for yourself; it reports the allegations without disclaimers about "right wing misinformation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghurs#Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_Xinjiang
The New York Times reportage on the Uighurs
https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/uighurs
“Show me anyone who's escaped communism who isn't pro-Trump. You can't."
That statement only requires one example to refute it: https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/cnns-ana-navarro-lashes-out-when-pro-trump-pundit-calls-her-leftist
But if an emigrant from the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua doesn't qualify, then
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/11/2/vietnamese-american-voters
I've read many other comments from people who "fled communism" and opposed the Trump presidency. But mostly in letters comments, etc.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply and appreciate the links. I don't just read or watch what media says about immigrants who've fled communism. I like to talk immigrants to hear what they say. Not what the media says they think. While you're right, some don't like Trump, all have said he recognized the threat of the CCP. They all told me they don't get why so many Americans don't get the danger of China. Biden is completely in the pocket of the CCP and all the media that fawns over him too. They may wag a finger once in a while at China for the genocide, but they're insanely busy 99% of the time writing about the danger of American terrorists.
I agree with you Polly. I don't get it either. I read and listen to CNN, Fox, MSNBC and a bunch of left wing and right wing kook sites, and it doesn't ever get me saying anything but "all of these folks are whacko's." I just don't get why people are so easily persuaded by one side or the other, but evidently they are easily persuaded.
Ultimately though, you get the politicians and media that you deserve. If folks really believe these propagandists, then I guess they deserve them and will get them good and hard.
Thanks, Gary. I've been pondering it. And they don't seem to understand it's not just the crummy politicians they get, but the crummy community. My husband and I always enjoyed throwing parties. I love to cook and food and lively conversation was how I grew up. We'd debate politics (my father was a lawyer), movies, books... But after Trump was elected it started not to be fun anymore. And it's not his fault. It was happening years before that with my left identifying friends. Honestly, a big part of why I stopped calling myself a liberal was I just found the conservative people who came to our parties far more - not just tolerant - but interested in other points of view, more educated, more widely read, less censorial. One Trump hater accused me of being a Nazi (actually Eva Braun) because I simply said, when he was ranting about Russian collusion, that I saw no evidence of it. (He waited to email me that after the party.) He and the handful of people around him said “Oh no? Well, the NYT believes in Russian collusion.” I stopped stirring the pot of stew and asked if they all believed the NYT. They said “Of course.” I tried to explain the Park Avenue mega money makers off war oriented bias of NYT, how they covered up the Bushs' involvement in the cocaine trade during the Central America war fiasco ... they wouldn't have it. I said to my husband that I just couldn't cook for small minded people. He agreed. They killed the fun.
How could you have possibly trusted any of their international or foreign affairs coverage after the Judith Miller scandal? They still haven't adequately apologized or admitted what happened. After 2001-2003 I finally woke up to the fact that the NYT is just private finance propaganda and the CIA exercising its "soft" powers domestically (and illegally) to assist with generating support for their various agendas.
Jayson Blair?
Oh yeah for sure. But his lies and plagiarism didn't result in an illegal invasion of a country and contribute to the forever wars that enabled Obama and Hillary to sack Libya on behalf of France and of course fund the head choppers in Syria. Hell, Trump wouldn't have assassinated Soleimani if we had never invaded Iraq in the first place. But now I'm way off on a tangent.
Because I was 10 years old when the Judith Miller scandal happened and I had literally never heard of it until almost 15 years later. All I knew was that my parents were smart and they thought it was the best paper in the country so naturally that's what I should read when it was time for me to become an Informed Adult too.
Right, but as I said, they have yet to fully account for it and the fact that you didn't hear of it until 15 years later is due in equal parts to your age - AND - the fact that the rest of the corporate mainstream media basically stopped talking about it and brushed it under the rug. Regardless, once that happened (I was 24 years old at the time) I did the research and NYT has a history of misrepresenting crucial international news and telling bald faced lies. Look at their Venezuela or Russiagate coverage for examples. If you want the CIA viewpoint by all means continue reading the international section, but like I said, they do occasionally print some good local/state level investigative journalism and their book and film/music reviews are good.
I'm not sure how you read my original comment and took away the idea that I still trust the NYT lol. I don't read them at all anymore. Once I started to realize how full of shit they were because of the Trump and Amazon coverage I started looking into their history of questionable reporting and learned about Judith Miller and of course the Russiagate sham, among other things. I don't really see how I could have come to that realization any sooner given the fact that I was a child during the Iraq war and the media I had been raised to trust never mentioned anything about the scandal when I was a young adult gaining political consciousness.
And I'm not sure how you read either of my comments and took away the idea that you somehow trust the NYT implicitly. Furthermore, my original question was past tense: "How could you HAVE TRUSTED..." which you kind of answered in your original comment that you agreed with them for a portion of your young life despite the information you needed to realize they were and are untrustworthy being out there and easy to find. Granted, we all have our awakening moments and yours was Amazon and Trump, but the NYT has NEVER been trustworthy is my point.
But good point about Amazon, BTW. That gives lie to their local reporting too. So perhaps actually NONE of what they print should be viewed uncritically.
The frenetic news cycle makes it easy to to just "move on" and brush past indiscretion under the rug. If only human relationships / marriages were like that! If you're on the wrong end of that, you never forget. Ever.
Hey Eddy,
thanks for your comment. It really resonates with my own life experiences. While I was graduating college in 2010, I too grew up with NYT as the 'paper-of-record'.
The extent of their manipulation and deception wasn't obvious until, like you, I saw how their reporting grossly diverged from my own first-hand experiences. I grew up in Vermont, was quite familiar with Bernie Sanders history, and worked as a volunteer organizer for his presidential campaign in 2015. Seeing the NYT ignore, then ridicule, then assassinate Sander's character was quite eye-opening. I'm open to good-faith arguments for or against policy, but they did not argue in good faith. They revealed precisely who's interests they represent.
Taibbi, Greenwald, Scheerpost, Matt Stoller, Michael Tracey, TrueAnon, Consortium News are my go to places for reading. I still check out the nyt and other msm outlets, but I definitely don't trust their reporting. Cheers.
Yes!! Their portrayal of Bernie Sanders was a huge issue for me as well. I wasn't aware of him before 2015 and at the time I assumed they were just ignoring him because they thought he was a marginal candidate (though I voted for him) and because they were obviously heavily biased towards Hillary. I thought it was ordinary ideological bias - I had no idea how deep the rot really was. I also love TrueAnon and their exposé of the 2016 DNC "ratfuck" of his candidacy, aided and abetted by the media, was an eye opener to say the least. Then 2020 happened and it was honestly disturbing how the mainstream liberal media and the party establishment treated him. Truly shameful to see how they maligned one of the few genuine public servants in Washington - one of the last few politicians who cares about the people in a way that's obvious even to those who disagree with him. Suddenly he was a Jewish anti-semite, a problematic old white man with problematic followers, an angry old fool, and his one ally Tulsi Gabbard was a Russian asset. It was absolutely loony to read compared to their fawning coverage of creepy uncle Biden the "reformed" segregationist and fresh-out-of-the-CIA-lab Mayor Pete.
Even my conservative relatives will admit to respecting Bernie for his integrity and decency though they loathe socialism - THAT says more about his character to me than anything published in the NYT. I had already stopped trusting the msm and the major parties at that point but their 2020 Bernie coverage made me actively angry. Thank god for substack and patreon! I haven't heard of a couple of those writers you mentioned so I'll definitely check them out.
Same here, guys.
I used to pooh-pooh conservative accusations about the "liberal control of the media." In 2016, watching NYT/WaPo go completely in the tank for HRC and do anything and everything to smear Sanders was an instructive experience.
«I used to pooh-pooh conservative accusations about the "liberal control of the media."»
As to "control of the media" the Trump story of the past 4 years shows that either that "the zios control the media" is a really delusion or "the zios" are really dumb: Trump has been a good likudnik, put himself under likudnik protection by giving Bibi everything he wanted (except admittedly a nuclear bombing of Iran), and still the mainstream USA media and politicians treated him to a barrage of attacks, and the likudniks did not support or defend him. Either doing what the likudniks want is worthless because they don't have influence or the likudniks have influence but are ready to throw under the bus even those most loyal to them.
Some of my most enjoyable reads are not American newspapers, but British ones. I spent some time in Britain and still regularly go back (a temporary exception for these COVID days). It was in Britain that I discovered the British Spectator magazine (while it's related to the American Spectator and shares some writers and articles, it's still clearly a different beast). It's a pragmatic conservative commentary magazine with insightful articles about current issues. Although it has a British focus, it extensively discusses the woke cultural wars (which Britain is also experiencing, although not quite as badly as the US, but the same entrenched mindset of woke progressives entangling all the great institutions is also becoming a problem). The Spectator also observes American politics. And it has both conservative and liberal writers, who are united to in their commitment to old fashioned Enlightenment liberalism.
I also find the London Times an good read. It's a pragmatic centrist newspaper.
For the US, the best commentaries are coming from the margins of journalism these days. Matt's substack has been great and Andrew Sullivan is another good name. Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Ngo are two other names to read. City Journal offers excellent intellectual conservative viewpoints.
For basic journalism ("fact based") Bloomberg and the WSJ are limited in scope but tend to be more accurate and have fewer subjective moralizing creep and still report as opposed to advocate. WSJ does have a very conservative Op-Ed page but the Op-Ed editors and the news editors/journalists are still clearly separate functions (unlike at the late, great and lamented NYT).
I do wish we had a stronger tabloid tradition in this country. The NYPost comes closest. Everyone loves to hate the tabloids (as in the UK) but the tabloids can offer cunningly honest reporting every now and then that forces into the public conscious a scandal or topic other papers are reluctant to cover, especially politically incorrect or inconvenient ones (such as the Hunter Biden laptop scandal).
Nice catch on the tabloid contribution ("cunningly honest" yes). While Murdoch's Post has a clear ideological line (perhaps the only American daily willing to push back against some of the more egregious excesses of the "mainstream" papers) some of the UK tabs end up pretty close to neutral. The Daily Mail will cover stories that the US media won't, and it does so from the middle; Left, Right, Center, whatever, if it's lurid they'll print it.
I read the Economist to find out what’s going on in the world. They’re a tad on the liberal side, but it ain’t hurt me none.
"The Economist", like "The Times" and the FT and WSJ, are "establishment" propaganda organs, and their political "news" are the same opinions pieces as everywhere, right-wing neoliberal/neocon, rather than "liberal". Their business news tend to be rather more reliable.
If you can stomach a good article from a (very) politically incorrect site, this description of the decadence of the "The London Economist" as it was seems quite reliable to me:
http://www.unz.com/runz/the-long-decline-of-the-london-economist/
“So as time went on, more and more of the sharp intellectual features which had once given the magazine such verve and originality were gradually sanded off, not completely, but to a considerable extent. The London Economist became just the plain Economist, rarely willing to violate the boundaries or taboos of the reigning DC/NYC neoconservative/neoliberal American Establishment, merely a smarter, better written, much deeper version of Time or Businessweek.“
BTW I really like BusinessWeek or Fortune, they often, often have in depth pieces, but again their political news are "aligned" propaganda, and sometimes BusinessWeek is even more informative than "The Economist".
I'm in the financials industry and most of what Economist prints is garbage.
WSJ. Still subscribed to nyt but hardly read. I read NYT for over 10 years as an immigrant, but got tired of NYT in last 2 years especially by reading opinion writers such as Michelle G and Paul K. Not only lack of rationale but also full of hatred messages. Don’t want brain got polluted anymore.
I used to commute into Midtown on the NJ Transit trains through most of the 90s. Rightfully or wrongfully, I could identify the serious people who were reading trade mags associated with a line of work. The unserious people were reading the NYT. Dress and behavior also was generally in alignment with this view. Not much WSJ because this was Midtown.
There is no single go to news source for me. I still pay for the NYT and can only consume it in small amounts, kind of like how high society women applied arsenic to maintain their pale complexion (not to worry, I am a POC). Also, the WSJ and various online sites, blogs and podcasts from left to right (yes, Matt and Glenn are "left" sort of) including libertarian, democratic socialists and a touch of socialism here and there. I drink from all sides of the trough, even Dan Bongino (who did a decent job exposing the Russia hoax)! Ideally, I should start a news site that summarizes news/opinions from all walks of life. Would any of you read it? I know I would.
I read WSJ because the news section is liberal and opinions GOP establishment. I then use social media to read what the true left and right think.
I noticed it another way. Forever, while the Times was the national paper of record, it was still a NEW YORK paper, with great reporting of local affairs, politics, transit and sports. The Times sports columnists were nationally recognized.
I used to work in sports (I was the kind of person who the National Sports Daily was written for). Sometime around the millennium, the Times stopped sending reporters to games, including New York-based games, unless the games were of "national" importance (e.g. World Series, NCAA championship)... more or less the Yankees and Mets game recaps were brief AP writeups. And then suddenly, partially because of the internet, the game recaps stopped, and the entire sports section was dedicated to cultural issues. Caster Semenya became more important to the Times than Henrik Lundqvist. More ink was spilled about LeBron James' off-court marketing decisions than the brilliant pitching of Jacob DeGrom, who performed for a NYC team once every five days.
The Times decided that facts were less important than opinion in ALL sections - and started cheerleading for their pet causes in the sports section. Transgender high school sports (pro), Minority coaching candidates (pro), Fan reactions to Colin Kaepernick (anti), College Football playing through COVID (anti)...
It was almost as if the sports section wasn't being written for sports fans, but rather the rest of the newsroom, who needed a cheat sheet to keep up with the culture at large.
«Sometime around the millennium, the Times stopped sending reporters to games, including New York-based games, [...] And then suddenly, partially because of the internet, the game recaps stopped, and the entire sports section was dedicated to cultural issues.»
In large part those reporters sent to games were paid by small ad revenue, then eBay etc. sucked that up, and opinion on cultural issues can be written much more cheaply.
Consider TK itself: we pay a small sum and all we get is opinion pieces on cultural issues, and not even a wide range of cultural issues, but usually only opinion pieces on just media cultural issues. That's interesting enough for me, but it is a long way from "sending reporters to games" and gathering primary news.
Point taken, but TK News' slogan isn't "All the News that's Fit to Print"
I think there is an inverse point here too--along with the loss of ad revenue, the NYT has come to rely far more heavily on subscription fees, which generally are paid by the sorts of fanboys and fangirls who populate its comments sections. Accordingly, the paper has narrowed its scope and it ideology to appeal to them.
«the NYT has come to rely far more heavily on subscription fees, which generally are paid by the sorts of fanboys and fangirls»
Oh yes, in another comment I point out that in article mentioned by another commenter there is very important statistic:
“Digital subscriptions to the New York Times, which had been stagnant, nearly doubled in the first year of Trump’s presidency. By August 2020, the paper had 6 million digital subscribers — six times the number on Election Day 2016 and the most in the world for any newspaper.”
Those extra 5 million new digital subscribers loved reading the 3,000 "Russian collusion" stories that the NYT seemed to have published over the same 4 years.
It's leading us to the conclusion that the so called elite are really not that elite and never really have been.
We're seeing evolution take place as the former elites completely over reach and over react to their own failure to lead us correctly and with integrity.
I really can't agree with you that an aristocracy isn't inherently a bad thing. It's precisely how we got to this juncture.
The entire idea that just because someones great granddaddy was a good leader or had integrity automatically means their offspring will follow suit is just ridiculous on it's face and has been proven wrong over and over again.
That's not meant to let off the hook all the wanna be sycophants and other useful idiots that will gladly do their bidding, I'm just trying to find the brass tacks that keep this fallacy alive.
I really hope this is the end of this bullshit concept we have in our culture and we can begin to organize according to the actual results people get from leading.
As of right now the elite are about to turn this country into the middle east war crime spree we had in Iraq and Afghanistan due to their fear of being held accountable for their failures.
"I really can't agree with you that an aristocracy isn't inherently a bad thing. It's precisely how we got to this juncture." Agreed. The Tories of the Eighteenth century have become our aristocracy, along with the nuevo riche tech overlords.
Yes, I am astounded at the mediocrity of the few member of the "elite" I have actually met...there's very little there in terms of character and achievement.
Hunter Biden is your overlord. He is beyond reproach. Deal with it.
Heh heh...good point.
They're sociopaths- character is a detriment and they measure achievement in very different terms than you or I do.
Thanks for that thoughtful reminiscences about the NYT. As someone who began reading it in the 1970s, I find it to be an unreadable propaganda sheet today--"All The News That Fits Our Narrative" should now be on the masthead. But I would not have necessarily marked the beginning of its decline in 2000. But you might be right about that.
And so willing to paint 74M Trump voters as racist and white supremacists. "Us" vs. "Them." Pink Floyd sang a song about it in 1972
Yes, and the worms ate into their (NYT’s) brain!
Great call on "US vs Them," I was thinking that same thought yesterday when I heard it on Sirius XM.
Roger Waters is a keen observer of the human condition, as well as a great songwriter. and conceptualizer (is that a word??) I don't necessarily agree with his politics, but I admit I love his songs. Glad he is still writing.
Roger Waters is a bit of a narcissistic sociopath himself, at least to hear his bandmates talk. That said, i'm prepared to forgive him for his views, being cloistered as he is. He also appears to be seeing death coming and trying to be a better person now.
Yes, there's been a lot written about what a jerk he is in the studio. I would point out, however, that he has said he was wrong to treat PF like he did in the 80s. So at least he has seen the error of his ways. He's still a good songwriter, when not too self-indulgent.
Interesting quote from a well known cynic:
https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1073547003412537344>
“Nassim Nicholas Taleb Dec 14
Remember that the NYT, while promoting platitudinous & vague notions such as "integrity", "truth", etc. was behind the Iraq war, regime change, and other monstrosities. The NYT is a cover for warmongers & managed to convert the pseudo-left to militarism.”
«An aristocracy, as the elite Americans have become, is not inherently a bad thing. There has always been an element of an aristocracy in America, a consensus among the nation's elite. The problem emerges when the aristocracy is not just out of touch with the broader swathes of its fellow population, but disdainful of the same people.»
An argument could be made that it is not a proper aristocracy, but an oligarchy, or a plutocracy, and what you describe is the dixie attitude that there are are masters and their trusties, and there are servants, and the servants are not really on the same level as the masters and their trusties. This attitude is very popular among the servants too, many of them want more to become masters or trusties than to end a system where there is such a huge difference between masters, trusties and servants.
As often happens de Tocqueville's saw it coming:
«Thus as the mass of the nation turns to democracy, the particular class which runs industry becomes more aristocratic. Men resemble each other more in one context and appear increasingly different in another; inequality grows in the smaller social group as it reduces in society at large. Thus it is that, when we trace things back to their source, a natural impulse appears to be prompting the emergence of an aristocracy from the very heart of democracy.
But that aristocracy is not like any that preceded it. In the first place, you will noticed that it is an exception, a monstrosity in the general fabric of society, since it applies only to industry and a few industrial professions. The small aristocratic societies formed by certain industries inside the immense democratic whole of our day contains, as they did in the great aristocracies of ancient times, some men who are very wealthy and a multitude who are wretchedly poor. These poor men have few ways of escaping from their social conditions to become rich but the wealthy are constantly becoming poor or leave the world of business after realizing their profits. Thus, the elements which form the poorer classes are virtually fixed but those that produce the richer classes are not so. In fact, although there are rich men, richer classes do not exist, for the wealthy do not share a common spirit or objective or traditions or hopes; there are individual members, therefore, but no definite corporate body.
Not only are the rich not firmly united to each other, but you can also say that no true link exists between rich and poor. They are not forever fixed, one close to the other; moment by moment, self-interest pulls them together, only to separate them later. The worker depends upon the employer in general but not on any particular employer. These two men see each other at the factory but do not know each other anywhere else; and while they have one point of contact, in all other respects they keep their distance. The industrialist only asks the worker for his labor and the latter only expects his wages. The one is not committed to protect, nor the other to defend; they are not linked in any permanent way, either by habit or duty.
The business aristocracy seldom lives among the industrial population it manages; it aims not to rule them, but to use them.
An aristocracy so constituted cannot have a great hold over its employees, and, even if succeeds in grabbing them for a moment, they escape soon enough. It does not know what it wants and cannot act.
The landed aristocracy of past centuries was obliged by law, or believed itself obliged by custom, to help its servants and to relieve their distress. However this present industrial aristocracy, having impoverished and brutalized the men it exploits, leaves public charity to feed them in times of crisis. This is a natural consequence of what has been said before. Between the worker and employer, there are many points of contacts but not real relationship.
Generally speaking, I think that the industrial aristocracy which we see rising before our eyes is one of the most harsh to appear on earth; but at the same time, it is one of the most restrained and least dangerous.
However, this is the direction in which the friends of democracy should constantly fix their anxious gaze; for if ever aristocracy and the permanent inequality of social conditions were to infiltrate the world once again, it is predictable that this is the door by which they would enter.»
"I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run." -Alexis de Tocqueville
Good post by the way.
De Tocqueville is still fresh and illuminating after 2 centuries. He was a master observer.
True. I don't disagree with what you write. I referred to aristocracy as that class of people who dictate the mores of society. It's unavoidable to have them, even in classless Soviet Union there was still the elite party figures who dictated the course of events.
I will agree that an aristocracy, or elite, or upper class, however we call them, will always treat the common people badly - if they can get away with it. The trick is keeping the elite class in check.
«I referred to aristocracy as that class of people who dictate the mores of society.»
Then more generally "elite"; "aristocracy" is the type of elite that is at the top of feudalism (which is based on personal relationships) and is defined by a different legal status, rather than impersonal market relationships. Thus de Tocqueville's point that the old aristocracy felt somewhat it had to "help its servants and to relieve their distress", while the current business oligarchy does not.
Years ago- maybe 5 or so, I read several articles from the NYT. The articles were all similar in one respect: the writers were trying to analyze and make sense (for the benefit of an apparently cloistered readership) the goings on in the rest of the country. They were analyzing people, occupations, residents of a local area, etc and in turn, explaining it to their readers. I came away from it all with the perception that the readers of the NYT were a pretty clueless and poorly travelled bunch. Needless to say, they also were simply not experienced in a wide and varied breadth of life.
So, yeah, it seemed they were treating the rest of us like a distant land or new, heretofore little-studied species. It was all very patronizing. Reminded me a lot of the NPR douchebags.
The NYT has always been about one thing, and one thing only. Legitimizing the use of American military and economic power and countering any perceived ideological or physical threats to the Western private finance based capitalist system. They've done some decent reporting at the local and state levels in the past, but the main overarching mission has always been on behalf of the CIA.
What you are describing about the change you saw in 2000 is basically the inevitable shift from covering main street and flyover America in the same way they have always covered the USSR, Iraq or Venezuela or China or any country that isn't 100% open to Western private finance or extractive industries from the US, UK, Germany or France. I know people who have called it the Langley Times for decades and they were proven right in 2017.
https://newspunch.com/new-york-times-cia-approve/
Excellent, thank you. I agree about the change. But there was always a division between the Lib Left that wanted to make great music, create a new localist organic cuisine - and the puritanical joyless Left that just wanted us to be comrades in pain. I began reading magazines and newspapers in the 60s. My hip suburban mom subscribed to newspapers and magazines like Evergreen (which was published by Barney Rosset who also published banned books like Lady Chatterley's Lover, Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett and who I was thrilled to have a phone chat with in his last days to thank him), as well as Playboy (which published really terrific writers like Terry Southern), and the establishment ones like NYT and New Yorker. I loved a lot of The New Yorker, especially the cartoons, humor (years later they published my humor), long reported pieces and Pauline Kael, who would become a close friend. NYT was always a scoldy snooze. It struck me then as inherently puritanical, like the puritanical Leftists I mentioned. When I met those Leftists in the 60s they weren't remotely sexy, their feminist women never shaved their legs and they always knew what was best for us. What's saddest about the Left media is that they're now devoid of anything free or fun, their satire sucks. The Leftist puritans have taken over. Their idea now of fun is when Sarah Jeong dumps on white people.
This is an excellent summary of the NYTs and their coastal compatriots. Their mindset are those of colonialist who have to manage the savage natives in their midsts. They speak of middle America in anthropological terms, it’s maddening.
What’s really frustrating is when Thomas Edsall gathers up some sociologists to examine Trump voters so as to explain them to the colonists, without ever actually speaking to a real Trump voter. It must be how some POC feel when whites whitesplaine about POC. I’m not a Trump voter but I live in one of the reddest of red states in the nation. My extended family are Trump voters as are my next door neighbors, I know of whence I speak. Everyone of these academic types totally miss the mark. They are the most stereotyped characters I’ve ever read about. If it was done this way about any other demographic there would be outrage from all sides.
One other rant about the NYT & WAPO. They purport to have “conservatives” on their editorial boards. But their idea of ideologic diversity is David Brooks, Brett Stephens, Jennifer Rubins and Max Boot. Seriously. All of these people are the most war loving neocons of neoconservatives. If they would pay attention to real trends in conservative right wing world they would find the majority of right wingers & republicans are sick of forever wars and do not want to intervene anywhere in the world right now (as side from war living Tom Cotton types). These “opinion” writers do not have anything in common with any of these people. They are probably the smallest minority politically there is and are out of touch with everyone from all sides. As the young people say today, NYTs should “do better”.
These people are just paid shills of the corporatist agenda. Focusing anger on them is misplaced. They take money to say what is desired; I think most of us would also do so. That's the evil of the filthy lucre.
One thing that baffled me is that after they hid the famine in Ukraine, covered up the holocaust and colluded with the W government to make up WMD, people still read it as if it cares about telling us the truth.
Just so well said Thomas. The echo chamber overreach MT elucidates (actual journalism amplified via insightful commentary) is why I subscribe and pay. MT, Glenn Greenwald, and to the right Lee Smith & Sharyl Attkisson, as example represent my own attempt to leave the bubble comfort zone - and read more broadly. Pocket book support for actual fact based reporting that comes with the commentary.
AS for the reference - two I have to pass on - first, NIXONLAND -(Rick Perlstein when he was still a historian and not back to hacking for the left) and Bryan Burroughs DAYS OF RAGE - both are well written and as bookends provide a general blueprint on how the pre-Watergate media and social atmosphere provided the backdrop for Trumps emergence and the dramatic response.
I think MT touched on some of this in GRIFTOPIA - how America is now engaged in a second Gilded Age - and just as the first one was never a fait acompli when it came to individualism and our unique Republican form of Democracy surviving, so it is again today.
Human agency matters now as it did then. Set aside all the pearl clutching and do locally what you can. But most of all resist the call to extremism from either side. Since I have lived most of my 60+ years in the gray zone of a working life - and never earned more than 30K in a year - MAGA was a natural fit. But I too have loved and been loved ( and lived almost half my life in either Kent Ohio, Charlottesville VA, or NYC, Washington, Chapel Hill & Greensboro) or loved Progressives - and that rural background that some on my fathers side insist predates the Jacksonian foundations of a once great Democrat Party - via Indiana County PA.
It is possible to admire both Steve Bannon and MT - and do so living on one's feet determined to stay that way - not on one's knees. It doesn't even take that much work really. While there are billions poured in right and left to fight this great ideological struggle we are now suffering - Tip O'Neill's oft referred adage applies - 'all politics are local'. So that is where the real battle is fought.
Read about the post Civil War corruption and all this Washington DC Kabuki theater looses some of it's Nightmare on Elm Street immediacy - we have been here before. The report of our demise ....another writer once said - and Tom Sawyer isn't dead even if God seems to be otherwise engaged....
Thanks again MT for a thoughtful afternoon - RE Laney
I agree with much of what you say, yet I've long observed the NYT to be elitist and out of touch. The differences now are the level of shrill contempt from the liberal elite towards those misbehavin' "others" and the added layers of insulation the elites have from the rest of the country -- insulation they're desperate to maintain.
But to get back to point 1, the Times has never been broad-based in its coverage of grubby blue collar people. The joke was they were lost once off Manhattan. Could never cover the outer boroughs, much less Pittsburgh. You mention Long Island. The exception to their non-coverage was, of course, the Hamptons. Yet, Eastern Long Island had long been a basically blue collar area with rich tourists and summer home people. It had it's own little aristocracy and was heavily Republican. Yet, to the Times, the locals were little more than amusing rustics who overcharged for yard work. This also applied to the plumbers of Queens.
As you point out, you did get a smattering of opinion from across the narrow range of politics acceptable to the elite. But that's it. I don't think this essential elitism of the Times changed. Rather it's the defensive quality they show, slapping back and sneering at people they simply used to ignore or, at best, laugh at.
Agree. Btw- what do you read now?
The Bernie campaign and its coverage was an eye-opening moment. Bernie's success, despite being black-balled by the msm, brought out the disdain of the elites. They were threatened and were struggling to control the narrative.
Thank God for Matt and Glenn. I need more of this kind of writing. It doesn’t always have to be perfect. It just has to remain skeptical. Of everyone and everything.
I was such an old school liberal for so long I didn’t even notice when things changed. That is until I had a conversation with my younger cousin and it ended with him calling me a fascist. Not because I’m a fascist, but because I don’t agree with him on everything, even we agree on almost everything, and it’s because these younger people have become puritans of another stripe. And like puritans of any stripe they will attack and destroy anyone who isn’t a fervent believer. And it’s to bad because half the fun of being a liberal is being the anti-Puritan, or at least it used to be. Now it is about conformity and the press has become just another tool of the hive mind.
Yes, the young have become little narcs... little soft powermongers..
so much to unpack
They remind me of the kids who were in charge of the camps in The Killing Fields
It’s “Children of the Corn” meets the “Charlie X” Star Trek episode.
Is it possible to permanently top Matt's comment on his own site?
I think Americans have entered a permanently mentally diseased state in which their politics are only intelligible through the lens of pop culture. I myself am guilty of participating in this.
It’s true, hence the Liberal Establishment imagining they’re characters in WW. We have a totally distortion reality field in the US where politics, entertainment and culture and even religion are fused together. It’s so unhealthy.
US pop culture is possibly the most powerful force the world has ever seen, but its engineers struggle to harness it. Calling the pipe-fitters!
I guess I am guilty too-I appreciated Lil Wayne endorsing Trump...
Now - that is funny.
As Thomas Frank pointed out on Useful Idiots last week, pop culture has been extremist since, what, the 70s? Buy this Extreme soda pop! Extreme sneakers! Extreme Cadillac! And while Extreme! goods and lifestyles are still being pushed, extremist politics is now forbidden on the internet and absent in MSM except to denounce it with suitable aghastitude.
More like “Children of the Cringe”.
Are you describing the "It's a Good Life" episode of Twilight Zone?
What was Charlie X?
Grups
https://www.startrek.com/database_article/charlie-x
that's a helluva call back … I wonder if Taibbi had that connection in mind, I doubt it! : )
But of course you're an innocent bystander in all this just pointing out we should all blame.
Right on, Nate! Had the same thing happen to me with 2 friends. It's like where are they coming from? These are men in their 60's acting like teen-agers
I know what you mean. Once, at a family gathering near a small town in Michigan, I asked my nephew if he knew a good place to have breakfast. He said, "Well, the best place is X but they have a Trump sign in the window so I'd never eat there." I asked why not and he said "because Trump hates all human beings." I looked at him for a tell-tale smile or some other indication he was joking but he seemed sincere. I wanted to ask my nephew if this statement included Trump's family but didn't bother. What's the use?
skeptical. that's the word we look for.
It’s about time to launch Radio Free America. Or, we should just have a one-party system with the media belongs to that either officially or only ideologically, which shuns any other publications, calling them not only dissents but dangerous.
Oh boy, I can see we found another scapegoat in order to keep the binary thought train steaming down the track.
Did it ever occur to you that while you were setting on your ass doing nothing someone was indoctrinating your nephew just like you, me and everyone else got indoctrinated ??
of course if liberal means anti-puritan (not a terms with which I'm familiar, but I'll keep going) and liberals insist upon obedient conformity, it's not liberal any more, it's right wing conservatism, like all of these political brand names of the last 20 years or so, the relative positions are much the same, but the center point of the bell curve has moved far left because the "left" views of the party that installed Biden are aligned with what was hard right last century …
I'm i'm following you correctly, all authoritarian governments, including but not limited to the USSR, Khmer Rouge and PRC are right wing conservative regimes?
huh? is there any other form of government other than authoritarian?
I wouldn't broad brush the examples you cite, nor would I suggest Biden and the DNC are comparable to Stalin and the USSR …
"nor would I suggest Biden and the DNC are comparable to Stalin and the USSR …"
I am going to type a hyperbolic and alarmist comment. Stop reading now if you're not interested in that kind of thing.
"Biden" (a mummy behind a podium) and the DNC (the actual power structure) have far more sophisticated tools at their disposal than Stalin ever did. Jack D. has made it clear which side he's on; the side of the ascending power structure. It makes him some dimes.
You said if "liberals insist on conformity, it's not liberal anymore, it's right wing conservatism". I was curious if communist revolutionaries were liberal in your eyes. It sounds like you would brand them as right wing conservatives? Or maybe i'm completely misunderstanding you?
I wasn't thinking of Che Guevara
I always stress the point that only partisan hacks debate words like 'liberal'/'left' and 'conservative'/'right' over the more important descriptor 'authoritarian'. Engaging in that strawman debate is misdirection meant to exploit individual biases. The important word is authoritarian. Some 150 million people in the 20th century learned this the hard way.
https://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DBG.CHAP1.HTM
Sorry about that, hit the wrong button initially. Comments should be open now.
Momentarily I thought you were afraid to face possible critics. 😺
Not in THIS lifetime!
Poor Matt is facing the same challenges with technology (especially Substack) that most of us are. Serenity Now!
Just one more thought. The essence of establishing trust in any relationship is being willing to admit your mistakes rather than ignore them or explain them away.
It's not so much that the media is continuously wrong, it's that they are, largely speaking, unwilling to admit their error...if an error is "admitted," it's typically through a stealth change made in the middle of the night.
Witness the Post's latest fiasco on the Harris story. They put the original back but never admitted that taking it down was wrong.
And that's why there's no trust.
You're still giving them more trust than they deserve. If all their "mistakes" err in the same direction, they're not actually mistakes.
Right on.
Think how much *less* trust there would be if loyalists to those publications were as aware of these systematic impurities as Matt Taibbi's readers are. Almost all of my friends get their daily news from CNN, the WaPo and the NYT, and while most are canny enough to smell the bullshit in the Op-Ed section, but have no grasp of how perverted the news generation itself is. And neither would I, were it not for this and a couple other Substacks, honestly. This has only assured me of how much I will continue to ne unaware of no matter what. That's most likely fine at this point.
I think a lot of people don’t care if they are being told questionable facts or narratives from the press as long as it reinforces their own personal biases and helps them feel good about their worldview.
Well said. There is a willful ignorance afoot. The people who swallow without chewing the establishment narrative—which describes the vast majority of my friends and family on both side of the Atlantic—are fundamentally good people. Yet they blindly support the program of Perpetual War (mass slaughter of innocents), the systematic lowering of the value of labor & the living standard, and extensive censorship. Again, these are not bad people adhering to the more palatable establishment line, but they are unwittingly digging their own hole.
"the People" have never had a chance to VOTE on war.
Sad....pathetically sad......but true!
The don't apologize they double down
Here's the rub: elitists NEVER admit mistakes made.
Elitists are sociopaths. Sociopaths never admit they are wrong. I was raised by one and saw it my whole life.
I think it's more a matter of "not getting caught" - they will never admit an "error" unless forced - maybe that's the difference between them and Trump :D the latter will never admit an error even when caught ...
The mainstream corporate media can keep doubling down on what they're doing and I'll keep giving my $ to Taibbi, Greenwald & Weiss
Seriously, Matt should start his own press and a lot of us would subscribe rather than watching MSM BS.
the problem is, they will be trying to shut down substack soon or at least get all independent thought banished from the platform
Who is Weiss?
A mediocre op-ed writer who left the NYT.
How do mediocre op-ed writers at the NYT get their jobs as mediocre op-ed writers at the NYT in the first place? A complete mystery.
Tom Friedman established the standard.
It’s helpful to give the empire a thorough ball wash with every article.
Remember MT's hilarious takedown of Friedman? An "anti-ear!"
https://delong.typepad.com/egregious_moderation/2009/01/matt-taibbi-flathead-the-peculiar-genius-of-thomas-l-friedman.html
That’s a funny piece. Thanks for the share. I’m known to walk off when people quote Friedman.
tom friedman on his best day is mediocre
Someone's niece or nephew?
Bari Weiss former WSJ & NYT editor/writer who most famously was run out of the NYT over the Tom Cotton oped suggesting using the National Guard over the summer..
Thank you.
Actually Weiss left the NY Times six weeks later: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-07-14/bari-weiss-new-york-times-resignation
The uproar over Senator Cotton's oped was just one of the reasons.
Bari is a neocon/neoliberal, and a vapid one at that. I wouldn't martyr her.
“Vapid” is the perfect description of Bari.
'Smugnorant' is another one to borrow from jimmy dore.
One of the best things Trump did was reveal the mainstream press to be a lot of idiot lemmings who were hellbent on one ideological outcome. They revealed the wizard behind the curtain to be a lot of foolish people. Once the curtain is pulled back, it can never be closed again. That’s why people are seeking out authentic voices on Substack, podcasts, Rumble, Telegram and other outlets.
Excellent point, but only those with open minds would see the MSM for what it is. The rest- ehhhhh
The media could care less. They've decided to be more open about the fact that their obvious superior grasp of the facts of the situation should be the only thing heard but the uneducated.
The reality is that I personally have arrived at the place of needing to check primary sources before I'll accept anything reported in the media.
If there aren't any to check then I'll mark it down as unknown.
It’s like the Lily Tomlin character on the old Laugh-In show, “we’re the phone company, we don’t have to care.”
One ringy-dingy.
Thanks for the chuckle. I had forgotten that...
That is so true. I cannot read anyone's 'facts' interesting to me without then spending rabbit hole hours seeking the actual truth. It sucks so much. I suspect my next 4 years will go like my last 2 weeks: They can write and say what they want, I no longer give a rat's ass because it's most likely bullshit, anyway.
MicrofiIm is the answer. The NYT could not sneak back and erase things like the Kamala Harris story when thousands of libraries had microfilms of the NYT. I began my librarian career in charge of microfilm and no one ever messed with the backfiles.
I'm not so sure. One of the Post's responses to the outcry over the Harris story was to point out that the print archives hadn't been changed...as if that justified changing the online version
There also is the Wayback Machine, which archives public websites frequently. The Washington Post article is here: http://web.archive.org/web/20210112043402/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/01/11/maya-kamala-harris-sister/?arc404=true
and on seven other days this month
Analog media and concrete archives are the answer.
It's funny how fast Tweets get deleted when the poster realizes they are "incorrect."
What a great and essential piece. I've talked about this on multiple other Substack threads, apologies if it's a repeat for you:
Going back to the late 90s, I used to tell my friends who took in conservative media that outright lies weren't the problem. The problems are (A) the information that they will never share with you, because it runs counter to their narrative, that would make you *fully* informed and (B) when a story turns out to be bullshit, they simply stop talking about it, rather than walking it back, which leaves most consumers believing that the story was true.
At some point in late 2017, I decided to stop following the Russia story closely, planning to review it when the Mueller report came out. Everyone here knows how that turned out. Gross abuses by both the "deep state" and the media. I had mostly been getting news from the supposedly most dependable sources, so I began looking at other stories from the previous few years. Holy hell.
My own news ecosystem had the same problems that I used to point out in conservative media, and some that were worse. Now I have to try to walk every story, from any source, back to primary sources/documents as if I were an independent news organization.
I don't know what to do other than what I *am* doing, but most of my friends believe as much nonsense as conservatives have, and their news sources are essentially terrorizing them to boot. But it's impossible to convince most of them that this is happening; you will certainly be taken asa conspiracy theorist, or "alto right" or a Trump fan. I have a couple of friends who are at the same point as me, who were always curious and independent thinkers, but it's as if we have to have conversations in secret. It's a horrible situation and I feel sure that it will only get worse.
We can only do what we can do. It's far, far easier to believe that what is presented as news is the only news worth knowing. I think most people would believe a lie they knew to be a lie rather than accept the objective truth.
I just gave up and went full boat Trump. He isn't my cup of tea, but watching him drive people nuts and call into question all their beliefs in how they were loved by the people has been the better part of five years of pleasure. I lost a few friends, but what kind of friends were they really if they let politics influence the people they talk to? It's like hating someone for their religion.
You ever check this out? The 5276 purported lies by Trump, by that Dale dude who is presently looking for real work. It's beyond cringe.
https://projects.thestar.com/donald-trump-fact-check
Having pushed the country to the brink of civil war, our benighted media are victorious. The cats have eaten the canary, courtesy of the January 6 mob, the horror of the sights and beatings, and 5 deaths. For the media, it validated the last four years of insult, and just in time. Hubris? Don Lemon has the gravitas of Soupy Sales.
No amount of reason or appeal to honor will change them. When Katie Couric tries to be cool, parroting the re-education camp meme, and when re-education camp pops up too often for comfort, we're dealing with conformity. Within a month or so, three colleagues have begun using Newspeak terms and pronouns (she/her or "they") under their signatures -- this is in a business context. No one remotely wonders, has asked, or cares what their sex or gender is. When dealing with the obnoxiously closed minded ("our values") the only option is to go around them. A beginning may be Matt regularly guest lecturing at Columbia School of Journalism. Seriously. I'd pay to see it.
The group that suffers is the middle, the normals looking for the exit sign, leaving both parties in droves. That's who the Post and Times and cable are ignoring and disdaining, not QAnon nutjobs, and that is where the market is, if only there were a product and a party. I am thrilled that Trumps's assaults on wolves and wild places, cruelty regulations, and air and water will be overturned. I am not thrilled that on other matters Biden appears to have been captured by the fringe. Regardless of our personal politics, the one-sided preening that now passes for news isn't tolerable. Free speech is free speech, especially when you don't like it.
"Don Lemon has the gravitas of Soupy Sales."
Love it! Gonna steal it! Course it only works for those old enough to remember Soupy Sales.
I had a crush on him.
I just paid $50 to make this comment (annual subscription) so I hope Matt reads it! Just got to say, please keep in the game Matt. There are so few like you.
Good man
Thanks Matt, really great. Personally, I haven't trusted the media since I was a kid and my father, who was stationed in China during WWII, and afterwards became a lawyer for a number of media people, told me how false the media was about international politics and that if I wanted to know the truth I should look to great political thriller fiction writers like Ross Thomas and Richard Condon. Later I spent a lot of time among media people. Most of them just wanted to say the “smart” thing and get to sit at the right table. It's funny how so many Americans think that because someone has a byline in the NYT, or can wear a suit well on Meet the Press, or have an NPR voice that they're telling the truth. I always tell such believers to spend a little real time with these people and they'd be far less impressed because many are psych medicated fruitcakes who wouldn't be able to hold a working class job or run a small business if their life depended on it - which is why they have contempt for the people who can. But twenty years ago there were more people doing real reporting -like Debbie Nathan's amazing expose of the daycare witch-hunt scandals in the late 80's/early 90s. And there was a lot more fiction that told the real truth. Fortunately, there are still a few and that's why you're important Matt, even when I disagree with you, which is a good thing.
My dad—a career newspaper reporter—told me a story from his first year working at a big city paper. (He was still in college part-time; this was back when you could get a decent job with a certain amount of talent and a high school diploma.)
He was reading some sort of zany human interest story that was showing up on the AP wire. He said something out loud like “wow—this is unbelievable.” His editor laughed and said “then it’s probably made-up. Half of the stuff that comes in on the wire is bullshit.”
He remembered being shocked that his editor would dismiss half of the news reported by the most conservative, respected mainstream source as being, to one degree or another, “bullshit”—but it was a view that he quickly came to share.
When I was growing up, I’d say that I learned how to read the paper and watch the news from studying his reactions. Then as now, a bombshell news story was 1/3 press release, 1/3 subtle invention or exaggeration, and 1/3 truth frosting.
The good reporters (including Matt, I assume) lived in terror of a correction or a libel suit, triple-checking everything. The bad reporters, though, rarely got caught, and had a much better chance of being elevated into media celebrity: the Stephen Glasses and Jonah Lehrers of the world.
(When I was a kid, I remember, there was one specific reporter at my dad’s paper whom he regarded as a full-on compulsive liar. That guy has gone on to win a Pulitzer and a PEN award.)
Totally believe it. Explains the 1619 project. A whole bag of made up, twisted history wins the Nobel Prize.
Does anyone take the Nobel Prize seriously at this point? It's become the Oscars.
I watched CBS before the inauguration began and one of the anchors repeatedly stated "Trump leaving the White House was like an exorcism!!!" Those were his exact words -- do these people know how stupid they sound?
They know how much they're getting paid and what they need to say to climb further up the corporate ladder. That's all that matters to a careerist.
When asked by one intrepid reporter why the Biden Plan to administer 100 million doses of covid vaccine in 100 days wasn't more ambitious, since the daily threshold to meet that goal was achieved while Trump was still the President, Biden's response was, "Gimme a break, man," while his press secretary admitted, "We're not mathematicians."
Is there anyone out there who doesn't hear that and go, "Oh no..."
"Look, fat"
Listen, Jack, I don't know what kind of one horse pony you rode in on. But when I said "No Malarkey", I meant it.
Next question.
Adults in charge.
PSAKI: “Well, none of us are mathematicians, myself included, so I asked our team to do a little math on this. The Trump Administration was given 36 million doses when they were in office for 38 days. They administered a total of about 17 million shots. That’s about less than 500,000 shots a day. What we are proposing is to double that to about one million shots per day. And we have outlined this goal and objective in coordination and consultation with our health and medical experts, so it is ambitious. It’s something that we feel is bold and was called that certainly at the time. And we’re working overtime to help to achieve it, try to achieve it.”
LOL. And you claim you are a scientist.
Did you think the vaccine distribution, or frankly any other system, would start at full capacity?
I mean that's some serious lying with statistics there by Jen Psaki. Maybe if she had used the last two weeks of data (I'm sure her team has the numbers), she might have reached a different conclusion.
Like I said. She's uninformed so she uses a lot of words to construct a lie. Here, she cites the average number of vaccines administered since the first day the vaccines were available, as if that is in any way relevant.
A very good follow-up question, if the Press was at all interested in exposing the truth, (and this administration's obvious lack of prep) would have been, "Jen, how many vaccine doses were administered *yesterday*?" Maybe her friends at CBS News could have cited their own story from January 13 where they cite close to 1 million doses a day.
I was thinking that they did - something like shouldn't we be more aggressive with our goal to be able to give more shots and then something about how long it was going to take us to get everyone vaccinated. Anyway - hopefully, she'll get more adept with a little time. I am glad we are back to getting daily press briefings. And we should be asking the tough questions. Maybe the press is out of practice?
Also - just as an aside, a lot of people don't want to get the vaccine. Is anyone addressing that issue?
And - I was wondering what happened with the story about how there were supposed to be vaccines released but then somehow the government didn't have the doses they said they were holding back. What happened with that? And maybe it is an issue of getting more doses? I'm sure they want to get as many people vaccinated as possible. Maybe we need to ask questions about the availability of doses and staffing, too.
Anyone talking about vaccines for any kind of cold, flu or sars virus doesn't know what they are talking about. Why do you think they provide flu vaccines every year? Because they are vaccinating people - who are dumb enough to get a vaccine - for last year's flu strain. Not for the flu they are about to get, if they do get it. Oh - and btw - there is no vaccine effective for the cold, which is the same virus as sars. To the extent there may be a vaccine for covid-19, it will last only until this strain mutates, which will be the next cold/flu season. This is the state of scientific illiteracy that infects our entire society -no ability to think, reason or cogitate for themselves. The only way to deal with a sars virus like this one is prophylactic - vitamin D, C and zinc; good personal hygiene - handwashing, staying home when sick and sneezing into an elbow, as simplistic as that sounds. And, then building immunity, which sticking gross cotton petri dishes over your face for hours on end and impeding your oxygen flow is absolutely counterproductive to.
They are LYING to you about this "vaccine" to have a way to explain why they are going to lift the lockdowns that were only around to try to demolish one person's election.
I realize there is no vaccine that is effective for coronavirus and influenza. I thought that the point of vaccination is to train your body to better fight off a similar type of virus. Boosters are common, no? Does it really hurt to get a vaccine? Are you in the health or bio research sector? I was wondering when they told everyone to stay home to flatten the curve how that was going to work long term. I hope they are working on antiviral drugs.
So you really think that they are lying about vaccines so that they could do lockdowns which would keep trump from getting elected? What about all of the people who have died though?
Of course it can hurt to get a vaccine. There are many cases of people having their immune system destroyed from a flu vaccine. I once had such a bad reaction from a cholera shot I almost died. Your natural immune system can also train itself to fight off a virus. The only question is whether the danger of the virus by % is greater than the danger from the vaccine by % and whether your natural immune system is better equipped to fight a particular virus. In most cases, like the flu, your natural immune system is. Which is why many doctors don't tell you to get a flu vaccine unless you are in a risk category which most of us aren't. But, if you are going to take a vaccine, like the covid one, with a 0.5% serious side effect likelihood to safeguard against a virus with a 0.05% illness rate, then I can sell you some stocks high so you can sell them low.
This isn't Psaki's first time in the ring, but you must know that. She had to cover for Hillary while at State. That virtually assured her of being the next Democrat Press Secy. No, I don't think she will get any better, because she suffers the worst of all flaws: she believes she's the smartest person in the room.
As for the vaccine, see the other commenter. Given this reality, the path to herd immunity requires a combination of vaccinations and transmission of the disease. Those who don't want the vaccine should be allowed to live as if there was no covid, at least once everyone who wants the vaccine gets it. Then you'll have the half of the country that's vaccinated and the other half that was exposed, and everybody has antibodies. Yay!
But most likely, covid is the new flu, and we all just have to get used to the idea that it's never going away for good.
The problem that I have with people living as if there is no covid is that that is not reality. People work around people that can die from covid. How would you keep them separated and safe? A lot of citizens have died and I don't like how most people don't seem to care.
As Samuel Clemens once famously quipped, "If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you are misinformed." Regardless of how much we agree or disagree with what we read/see in the media, if we care enough about a story in these days of social media and instant online news (Facebook anyone?), we should do our due diligence and fact check on our own time.
Given the fact check sites are both fallible and fallacious or purposefully disseminating disinformation, how does one fact check in a desert of authoritative sources where journalism as a species facing extinction?
Once "they" turn off the money trough of patreon, substack and youtube "super chat" donations, what's next?
The corollary of manufacturing dissent is influencing dissent – for all we know, Matt Taibbi is a Russki, pinko sympathiser, deep sleeper agent awakened from a decade of slumber at a music magazine to lead the rebellion into a cul de sac of cancel-culture-conscious-carefully-crafted-criticism, acting like OxyContin for would-be Winston Smiths.
There are lots of ways to actually fact check. We are mostly just either too busy or lazy to do so. You can go to source material, as an example. For me, it was instructive to go to transcripts and/or full videos of Trump speeches or remarks to realize that what I was being told he said wasn't true. I have gone back to - yes - government source documents for budget #s or criminal justice statistics to see what's really happening with respect to where $ are flowing or whether unarmed black people really are being killed by cops in large numbers. (It's fascinating that you can get a wealth of #s through government stats gatherers that directly contradicts or undermines the media agenda. They think you won't check). Or, to understand the actual science of sars and whether masks are actually effective, I read medical journal articles, not news articles or CDC press releases. None of what they are telling us is supported by the scientific research (which, of course is imperfect, but even the best evidence we have contradicts what we are being told in the press and by policymakers).
But, this takes work. You can't rely on news "paraphrasing" for you. Or, wikipedia......
«You can go to source material, as an example. (It's fascinating that you can get a wealth of #s through government stats gatherers that directly contradicts or undermines the media agenda.»
Let's say I am familiar with how Economists "work". The good ones always look at the primary sources and question them, because many "processed" statistics are biased, and even the raw data collected is biased (often accidentally). Then they publish their results in obscure journals using heavily obfuscated language as the results are often detrimental to careers in departments of Economics heavily dependent on donations from the wealthy and business research contracts.
«They think you won't check)»
Of course they are right: almost everything we know as individuals is hearsay, inevitably, and therefore people's minds are predisposed to apply only rule-of-thumb checks to hearsay, being unable to verify it.
The most common rule-of-thumb applied by our minds is to trust that hearsay which seems repeated by multiple sources that seem independent. So for example if one person says "I saw John bribing Bob" is not trusted as much as a dozen people saying "I saw Jack/Jane/Bill/Kate/... bribing Bob".
So the "mainstream" ("centrist"/"whig"/right-wing) media rely on faking that: they repeat each other's talking points as if each were an independent witness. Sometimes it is just implicit collusion, sometimes it is explicit, as in when they repeat almost word for word the same implausible conspiracy theories as if they were all making a summary from a briefing from some security agency or another.
Agreed. I will say that I recognize even primary sources have inherent biases built in and and are imperfect. The methodology behind studies is also useful to check and try to cross-reference. As humans, we rarely can have perfect information or the "truth." But, we can come a LOT closer to reality by digging in by ourselves, verifying, checking and doing our own witnessing. One thing that I realize is that part of the "news" today is trying to get you to deny what you have seen or heard yourself. So, a big part of "detoxing" from that is trusting your own eyes and ears too. Problem is that if you think about a generation or two past and generations going forward, they have not/are not taught critical thinking or independent research skills (deliberately). So, we have millions of people who, very literally, can't do this work on their own.
"So, we have millions of people who, very literally, can't do this work on their own."
Wait 10-20ish years until we have a whole cohort of people educated only by Zoom classes and Youtube. Generation A is coming!
The point is, this is work "journalists" should be doing.
But they don't. Fact checking now amounts to “have I bashed Trump enough?” However, even back in the days of fact checking I would still do research on what an article said was true. Take the whole “fat will kill you” religion magazines promoted some years ago. My late brother was a cancer surgeon and the rare doctor who would do his own research on every study that came to his desk. He was disgusted by the “fat in your diet will kill you” myth that was being pushed by the media - whose fact checkers okayed it because this is what a “major medical study” showed. My brother actually read the study and said there was no basis for this conclusion. And he was right. We all need to question what we're told. And now the Biden administration will call us terrorists for doing that and say we need to be put into “reeducation” camps so we just accept their propaganda.
Thank you. I'm amazed at how many educated “liberal” people I know accept what they read in mainstream media or what Fauci said or WHO or Wikipedia tells them. I can't believe the number of supposedly smart people I know who just regurgitate what they most recently read in NYT. I think it's worse than laziness on their part. I think these people have no real core values, or even sense of themselves, so they can't do critical thinking and venture out of their comfort zone - actually finding out about something terrifies them. It's fun to own your own brain, actually. I sent a link to this interview with the revered microbiologist Sucharit Bhakdi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVq_Eufr9fw to a longtime friend who blew up at me for listening someone other than Fauci because he said I was contributing to more Covid deaths. This friend, btw, didn't think it wise to actually watch it himself.
If I'm reading between your lines, or really just reading your lines, you're of the persuasion that Trump was doing good and making things happen. While I agree with your comments on finding authoritative sources, I would challenge you to cite the sources for your claims about Trump or masks or police violence and deaths.
Trump was doing some good and making some things happen. So, was Obama. Frankly, so was GWB. So was DDE for that matter. Doesn't mean I supported any of them 100% (or voted for any of them; well not old enough for DDE). But, I make up my own mind how to do so - and make up my own mind about my own health decisions rather than having some "expert" tell me without me questioning. And you are going to have to do your own work. I spend likely 10-15 hours a week going to source material. Transcripts, full-length videos, medical journals, government stat cites - uh, ever heard of the DOJ or dept. of Commerce? - are all out there. I'm not going to do your work for you by finding all the cites and spoon feeding you. One - how does that make you just listen to me, who you don't know, rather than listening to NPR or NYT or Fox, who you don't know. Two - I get paid $325 an hour for my time. You want to pay me $3 - $4K a week to do your work for you, I'll consider it.
ok, so you're a minimum wage cubicle dweller, I only wish the divide between the haves and have-nots were narrowing instead of widening with each successive and unsuccessful administration, but I wouldn't put Bush 1 and Eisenhower in the same sentence. (oops)
p.s. my question was to ask where and what is that "source material" of which you speak … government departments are not bastions of truth … FOIA revelations remind us, whistleblowers remind us … truth is not forthcoming …
If I'm reading between your lines, or really just reading your lines, you're of the persuasion that Trump was doing good and making things happen. While I agree with your comments on finding authoritative sources, I would challenge you to cite the sources for your claims about Trump or masks or police violence and deaths.
How does one become a credentialed fact checker? I understand that journalists get a piece of paper with BA slapped on it but what does a fact checker get? A newspaper folded into a hat that they can put on their heads?
As a paid subscriber, I demand that Matt wear a dorky fedora with a giant yellow PRESS card in the hatband on all future episodes of Useful Idiots.
...a Cap'n Crunch pirate hat made out of newspaper might be an acceptable backup.
no idea tardigrade, your wisdom will outlive us all, come "the big one", but I think your idea of a degreed professional "bachelor of facts and proof" is a seriously brilliant idea, like a public notary, someone held accountable for the recording of what is real and true, what is actual and factual, it's just so obvious, yet the role doesn't exist and if it did, like an actuary, people would complain "gosh, that seems expensive, you really didn't _do_ anything" … : )
Credentials don't matter.
"for all we know, Matt Taibbi is a Russki, pinko sympathiser, deep sleeper agent awakened from a decade of slumber"
Point taken, but I think he's OK.
The intelligence agencies are not as sophisticated as many assume. When they do shit on the internet, it is pretty heavy-handed and obvious; "glowies." That's not to say that there isn't still fuckery going about. Keep a sharp eye.
Of course, *I* might be an intelligence agent...
thanks for writing that – we're seeing the world through like eyes and just the word "fuckery" well used, makes me think you and I would be drinking buddies with Matt.
Can't wait for the Biden SOTU drinking games. I will probably die.
yeah, if I was in AA, my sponsor would have me on lockdown that night … but we're already on covid lockdown and the vaccines aren't going to stop this pandemic before the SOTU dog and pony show, so who gives? : )
I actually remember watching MT on the extended CSPAN author segment - where they visit for like...hours...and he mentioned at length how living in Russia had a deep influence on him as a journalist and writer in general. That interview closed the deal - transforming me from the off-hand ROLLING STONE read at the doctors to full-fledged trip to B&NOB'S for a fan-boy book buy
(always buy New for the real deal so they get paid - not Thriftbooks online)
MT is the real deal.
It's an old chestnut, but I'm trotting it out: "Military intelligence is a contradiction in terms."
Have you read W. Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories? Great stuff about the vagaries, stupidities and quotidian dulllness of the intel biz circa WWI. Prefigures and (IMO) exceeds Le Carre'.
"acting like OxyContin for would-be Winston Smiths"
Jesus Christ. Who aspires to be Winston Smith? Isn't the point of 1984 that his life is utterly miserable and debased?
...to your point,
fwiw, I didn't suggest anyone was knowingly "aspiring" (?) to be a Winston Smith (to be honest, I had to google to remind myself of that character name, btw : ) but I would say many US citizens and voters are unwittingly on an oxycontin-like information regimen.
You expect Americans to make that kind of effort? You're an optimistic sort!
Yes, it's all moot. The people with time on their hands to yammer on here also have time, the education, and the access to find good sources. Many more people are interested in, for example, Fox News because they have blonds or in a celebrity they like, whose qualification to speak on politics is that they starred in a sitcom. Almost no one has the time to fact check. And you simply couldn't check everything even if you spent 24 hours a day doing it. The best you can do is find sources that have a high probability of at least attempting the truth. The lumpenproles aren't getting off their second job then searching through academic papers online or learning statistics. Give me a fucking break.
Check out Snopes on your “Mark Twain” quote. Not accurate. The attribution, that is. The quote is fine. Just remember that you’re perpetuating the “Oh dear, I can’t believe anything I read” mentality that got the Trump crowd into their current awakening.
I love you Matt, I really do. But I take sincere umbrage with your comparison of the current US corporate media to that of the USSR. Brezhnev’s media was nowhere near this toxic, this biased, this absurd! Brezhnev’s Pravda, Izvestia & Vremya were closer to Edward R. Murrow than to today’s NY Times or CNN! Yes, Stalin’s fantasy press pairs nicely with Rachel Meadow & Chris Cuomo, but please don’t sully the reputation of Brezhnev’s press with these people. It’s just not right, not fair.
*fist bump* for a man who is willing to stand up for Soviet journalism over the crap we receive today.
How did US media somehow get under the lowest conceivable bar?
"Work hard and apply yourself, son- it's the surest pathway to success". If success is spewing out unbelievable garbage each and every day.