The Activision Case, and the beginning of Tesla. Taking a strategy imported from the Department of Labor, the DFEH launches a series of media-centric cases
This a great example of why we subscribe. Wonderful, thorough, actual careful reporting! You are the real deal, Matt, and I wish newsrooms would bring you or at least your articles in to show peop,people, how it's done.
"Wonderful, thorough, actual careful reporting!" Yes. To wit:
"As for the party the [Wall Street] Journal wrote about involving 'scantily clad women' who 'danced on stripper poles'? A performance of Cirque Du Soleil, according to one source who attended the event. When I asked the Journal about that and other issues, they said, 'We stand by our fair and accurate reporting on Activision.'
It’s hard to believe anyone could characterize a cirque performance as scantily clad women on stripper poles, not least because I’ve never seen one without men as well as women. Thanks to Matt for taking the time to wade into all of this, because it’s terribly tedious, as well as tragic for California.
I have worked in PR for several different large companies. While WSJ is one of the more respectable publications, I have personal experience with one of their reporters who ignored facts to write the story that she wanted to tell. Trust no one!
Did not need to suppress it. The corporate media was fed the story directly and bought it no questions asked. Thy are hand in hand with their government counterparts. That, along with the age old problem that the long form investigative journalism like this that are necessary to get to the root of the matters do not apply to the click driven media market.
Our once productive nation has been riddled with cancerous parasites. Parasites & looters go where the money is. Since they have nothing valuable to offer, they scheme & plot all sorts of nefarious ways to get at what they could not earn in a free market. Expect the same band of looters & parasites to eventually flock to Texas and take up residence there, after California has completed its descent into a permanent hellhole.
These "parasites and looters" were highlighted and identified in the novel "Atlas Shrugged" a sometimes flawed but powerful novel that is suddenly relevant in today's destruction of California's business community by social justice neo-Communists posing as gov't regulators.
These grifters and parasites are the inevitable result of low IQ gov't employees being given powers they can utilize for their own self-aggrandizement and to compensate for their lack of talent and mediocre abilities. Power and lack of intelligence are a deadly toxic mix that all too often are evidenced by the gov't bureaucrats who swarm every agency in D.C. Time to make some effort to root these pernicious turds from any agency with punitive powers.
I used to mock that novel. I thought the bad guys were simply not believable. “They are cartoonish” I said. I don’t think that anymore and realize how naive I was.
The heroes are less believable, I think. At least in the way they speak. The villains, though...Rand had experience with the kind of parasitic grifters who populate her book, the heroes were mostly wished-for fantasies.
Like anyone surrounded by villains and bullies (Communists of Russia) she created super heros to put a stop to those powerful monsters. It is the way many of us stay sane. Maybe Trump has become that super hero to many who are sick of being bullied and discounted by today's powerful elites and academics. Like the French revolution the reaction to the Royals and others will be way over the line but understandable. When the winds start ton blow there might not be a place to hide. Try studying the Cultural Revolution in China to see how the government opened societies relief valve to blow off the pressure built up by that same horrid government. The resentment and anger is now bing allowed to reach the boiling point in the USA.
I don't think the issue is lack of intelligence. They are slick enough. The issue is moral bankruptcy combined with a complete lack of vision or innovation. They can't offer goods or services people want to buy, so, like buzzards and jackals, they feed on the carcasses of better people.
Intelligence and wisdom are two pretty different things. Stupid "smart" people are as dangerous a child with a gun. Many smart people cannot change a flat tire or do many practical things yet they seem to always be in charge of programs and policies that effect those that can do actual practical things. Intelligence without experience or the wisdom "to know what you don't know" is a dangerous aspect of human life that seems to be ascendant in our current society.
Society is like a watch that smart people just wind up to keep going but others need to repair it when it is broken. Don't know a single academic professor I would call on if my survival depended on his/her abilities.
Yes there are many "professionals" who contribute to our society but they are not stupid smart people. They are the individuals who make society work. Many University Professors live in rarified precincts where practical considerations are left to others.
We see this in tech fields: "Smart people innovate. Corporate CEOs 'acquire'."
From there, they either bastardize of suppress what might have become an "innovation", or an "improvement" or even *GASP* a "competitive alternative to our companies services".
Sounds a lot like the 300 mile carburetor that the automotive industry suppressed. Then we got fuel injectors and that story went away. The entire idea of innovators being "bought out" to maximize profits has been a meme for generations. Probably just another conspiracy tale that is built into societies DNA. Either it is corporations or rich people making money off other peoples ideas.
Problem is we create millionaires by the score every year in America and the patent infringement industry is a lawyers bread and butter usually practiced against other corporations not for the benefit of those "garage" inventors. But the barroom tales of corporate theft of the little guys ideas will probably persist forever.
Anytime you get an entire profession that exists to make money off other people's inventions it's parasitic, regardless of who actually came up with the original idea.
A lot of individuals have good ideas and solutions to problems. The ability to monetize and get these "ideas" out there and have them popularized usually takes a very different set of skills. Ideas are one thing but it takes a real team to make them a reality. The salesman who sell the product for a profit could be considered by some as parasitic. Many peoples inventions have languished on their work benches or garages for years before someone found a way to make them a reality for other people.
Corporations like most any bureaucracy live to accumulate power, expand their reach and with corporations make money. Publicly traded companies can make money for their shareholders. Free markets can and do truncate inefficient corporations and businesses. There are trade offs in the free market but in the end it seems the best way to deliver services and products to the larger society. Central planning and government controlled distribution has failed time after time. It is NOT organic and the implementation by mediocre bureaucrats insures the failure of this method if running any society.
Elon Musk has been critical of shareholder “capitalism”/publicly held companies-and I can’t say I disagree with him. Proper industrial management is often at cross-ends with quarterly earnings…..
Being a parasite that benefits from capitalism is a type of innovating. EVERY society has individuals that put their minds to making the "system" work for them even in Communist nations. That is a very human but ugly attribute of humanity.
Yup-if you don’t consistently provide a tangible benefit to the population, or the cost outweighs the benefit, you will be gone. Hitler, Sears, Blockbuster Video, Nicolae Ceaucescu-it doesn’t matter.
That's assuming an actual free market. Crony capitalism circumvents market forces by controlling competition. Also, because they monopolize military force, it's a lot harder to get rid of Ceaucescu and Hitler than Blockbuster or Sears and they do a lot more damage on the way out.
I mean, the only reason Blockbuster went bankrupt is because the government didn't limit competition, like they do with, for instance, local internet providers.
".Social Justice" is a rubric that encompasses many ideologies. Currently in Western culture it has become a Communist lite ideology hiding under the umbrella of "Social Justice."
Sure social justice is a worthy cause but who defines "justice" and its component parts. The idea of delivering justice to large segments of any society by another segment of that society is pretty ambitious. Even that well organized and structured Department of Justice too often adheres to whatever political winds are blowing. Did they deliver justice to the Japanese Americans interred during WW II? What Justice was metered out to the medical profession and bureaucrats who carried out the Tuskegee atrocities. Could go on but the idea of "social Justice" is so broad and ambiguous that it easily lends itself to every form of political repression and truncating of basic rights under the guise of "doing good."
Social Justice language has become a hobgoblin terminology utilized by radical political operatives to justify almost anything. Even free speech has become truncated and suppressed in service of faux Social Justice.
Social justice is not a worthy cause. It is a nightmarish totalitarian hellhole. You can’t render justice to a society. It’s individuals who deserve justice.
I would add to @Not Me$ response to you the following:
"Social Justice", is anti-social and is antithetical to justice. Our civilization, meaning America from it's founding until its destruction in 1907 at the outset of the progressive era is founded on a legal and philosophical foundation that "social justice", is the antithesis of.
American justice is based on an objective measure of a crime. That is, it is just because a crime can only be tangible harm caused to a person or their property. It is objective because that harm must be proven using empirical evidence in a court of law adjudicated by a trial of fellow citizens who have been convinced by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Another pillar of our society is Freedom of Association. Freedom of association is necessary to live in a free society. It means that individuals and organizations are free to choose whom they want to associate with. Another pillar that works in conjunction with this is that political action and decision making is at best a lower form of civilization because political action is coercive, whereas voluntary interaction - freely associating individuals voluntarily exchanging and interacting and bound as equals under just law of property rights and contract law, is the highest order of civilization. Self organizing, self governing individuals are truly civilized because we do not coerce. We persuade and induce by adding value to the lives of others who obtain value in the form of, meaning, satisfaction, financial well being, pride, honor, satisfaction ... to those who voluntarily associate and transact with us.
Progressivism is really a regression. It is a fiction of civilization where those with political power use the force of government to boss others around. What Taibbi is pointing out is that the bureaucracy is really just a wealth leeching extortion racket. "Social Justice", is just a fig leaf that gives the bureaucrats the legal cover to extort wealth from companies and individuals.
120 years of Progressivism has destroyed the golden egg laying goose, in a myriad of ways from the Central Bank to this regime of, "Social Justice", that is in reality antithetical to Justice. If these lawyers want more women or racial, "minorities", hired why don't they form a company and hire them? Surely they are horribly mistreated and would jump at an opportunity to work for a firm that paid and treated them better. Surely they would have a competitive advantage over the supposedly discriminatory firms who lost their work force to a more just employer who keeps them happy and productive as they destroy the discriminatory and bad firms. Or, surely these greedy companies who can hire women for far less would get rid of all male employees and/or white employees and hire only women and racial, "minorities", at a 25% discount to save money and goose profits while destroying their competitors on price.
Oh! But that doesn't happen! You know why? Because it is a lie that the reality of the market exposes every single day but dumb ass Progressives and their fantasies of, "social justice", support. It is easy to sit around and live in the comforts of capitalism and enjoy all of its benefits and pretend you are spreading justice in the world. In reality you are spreading corruption and upending a just legal order as the unwitting tool of the Great Parasite Army of Lawyers And Bureaucrats. It is neo-Communism. The Communists themselves admitted it when they pivoted from class warfare to identity politics in the 1960s to institute their oppressor vs. oppressed narrative using the fig leaf of, "Social Justice."
"Social Justice", is a fraud that stands completely at odds with freedom and justice. It destroys all of the tenants of justice of the original American legal order: Freedom of Association; Freedom of Speech; Property Rights and Contract Law. Some day, men will return and re-constitute the proper legal order that incentivizes and rewards merit. This time, we will not the make mistake of enfranchising those who seek to overturn it. They can stay and reap its benefits to the extent their abilities merit their ability to benefit, but they will not be given the power to destroy it.
Read the words. In them you'll get the idea, and the argumentation that supports it that is in response to the neo-Communism comment. As for you, we aren't paying by the idea or the word. If we were, nobody has gotten a payoff from you yet. We're still waiting on an idea.
If they can’t accept a societal benefit that is perceived not to be of their doing, yes, they are a neo-commie. Did any “social justice” types give Trump even passing credit for having the lowest black unemployment rate in history under his administration?!? Of course not-the commissars can’t give the kulaks any credit for anything.
The BLM president openly admitted to being a trained Marxist and Communist. Their "Social Justice" claims sure resulted in them being made rich by their requests for donations which were immediately diverted for their own utilization. Very typical of the elitist social reform types.
The bad actors in these agencies aren’t seeking social justice. Unfortunately the term is now pejorative. Because of things like this. They might not be neo-Communists. More like gangsters.
Agreed. Intelligence doesn't make someone morally or in any other way superior. Someone can be evil and smart or evil and stupid, good and smart or good and stupid. There's no correlation at all. In fact, intelligent evil people are more dangerous because they are better at being evil.
What I was referring to was lack of intelligence within an unaccountable bureaucracy. These people are infused with power over others and that often results in a bullying mentality supported by the same bureaucracy that was organized to serve those same bullied individuals. Vicious circle.
I’m not one of those idiots who think nuclear war with Russia is a good idea. But should America devolve to “nukes at down”, the reset that kind of exchange would cause might be the only practical remedy for this situation.
" But should America devolve to “nukes at down”, the reset that kind of exchange would cause might be the only practical remedy for this situation."
Professor Tom, any "reset" resulting from a nuclear exchange almost certainly would make most of us long for our current "situation," whatever its seeming problems...be careful what you wish for.
I’m picturing a tiny handful of woke survivors crawling from the smoking ruins of their college campuses and planning a rally to demand “justice,” then asking if anyone thinks Jamba Juice might be open.
John Galt was a Scots writer of the early 1800s who gave us the word 'Utilitarian'. Though he was scornful of those who would forgo their traditions to become the same. See here, for instance (his main work):
Not going to assess Mark Ames "story" about Rand. Odd but I've read many biographies and stories about Rand without single reference to "her notebooks." or anything about Danny Renahan or the Little Street. One would think that a controversial author like Rand would have this exposed and analyzed by many other researchers.
She was University educated in Russia and did not come here until 1926 or so at age 21. This idea of her being a full blow sociopath has a taint of political smear. In any event until someone with a bit of independence fleshes out these assessments and assumptions I will stick to the mainstream profiles regarding Ms Rand.
Her so called enthrallment, without much evidence of her taking and "action," can be attributed to many things from her state of mind to her curiosity about the motivations of individuals like Hickman. FBI profilers conduct obsessive studies and research about serial killers for many legitimate reasons without them being sociopaths. Some even "admire" these monsters for their abilities to function while living with the demons in their minds.
Funny how the writings of the Marquis de Sade are referred to as imagined "libertine sexuality" by an author with a good heart but he is not castigated as a sociopath or a horrid person by many biographers. As I said I will await others assessment of Rand and her driving forces before I discount her writings.
"Ayn Rand did not admire the murderer William Hickman. On the contrary, she called him "a degenerate" and a "ruthless monster."
"The case (Hickman) showed me how society can wreck an exceptional being, and then murder him for being the wreck that it itself has created. This will be the story of the boy in my book.» (p. 38)
At least you're not being hyperbolic. The problem is democracy, the political market. People, the market, want something and so vote for those people that appear willing to give it to them rather than qualified, competent people.
In this case, there are people who felt that they have not been treated fairly and voted for politicians who promised to create agencies that would act in the interest of employees who feel that they were treated unfairly. This occurred in reaction to a system that considered management and owners to be the competent, fair and qualified overseers of the work place that resulted in more or less a "good old boys" environment in which they and their friends benefited more than women and minorities.
In other words, the regulatory and law enforcement agencies deferred more to management and that created a backlash from workers that has led to a system which now defers to workers. This appears to be how democracies work, they seem to operate in undampened spasms of reactions rather than in rational, moderated moves. The issue isn't to end regulation, but in finding a far better means to solve very real problems while minimizing injustice in the process.
Guess given the movement of businesses OUT of California to Texas and other more business friendly environments those "rightwing assholes" might have a point. The cesspool named California has lost over 183,000 citizens and one House seat. Just what aspect of California society is "good" for a working or middle class person.?
The elites, political class and wealthy living behind walls and security protected gated communities seem oblivious to the reality of life in a State infested with too many homeless addicts and a political leadership who caters to the criminal class way before even considering the taxpaying drones who must live in this wealth divided corporate run "utopia." Population shifts are a pretty accurate mark of the failures of political leadership. Even many Democrats are running for their lives away from Calif.
Florida is growing like topsy and has the normal growth pains in some areas. Calif. seems to have over managed itself in to a modern 3 world country. The gap between rich and poor is as large as the Grand Canyon.
Your view of "right wing assholes" presupposes that the left is "asshole" free. If true please explain Baltimore, NYC, Chicago and other major cities run by left wing geniuses. Not defending right wingers but like any fringe political position they have many less than responsible adherents. Given the actual damage and loss of lives caused by the radical left over the last few decades and last year I'll just say that the assholes on the right are pretty benign when compared to the political shock troops utilized by the Democrats.
My guess is you have not visited Austin or other big cities in Texas recently. They are currently pretty diverse and populated with every spectrum of voter. Broad brushing an entire State with negative invective is a pretty telling sign that you are less than well versed about that States residence population.
I always find it interesting how many leftists seem so arrogant when talking about places NOT run by other leftists. The entire "fly over" mentality is so pernicious that those bubble dwelling denizens just don;'t know what they don't know but are so sure of their "knowledge" that they summarily reject even thinking about others as fellow Americans.
BTW lynchings were a common form of "justice" in the wild west. Many whites and Blacks were lynched without a trial. Not right but NOT just a Texas thing. Lynchings took place in NYC as late as 1863 during the draft riots. And they had organized police forces.
Mississippi was the state where most people were lynched with an estimated 581 victims, 93% of whom were black. Georgia saw the second most lynchings, with 531 in total.
What do you think the cause is? The CEO of Hewlett Packard is a women so it can't really be discrimination. And there are only 3% blacks in all of California. Hispanics took their jobs and they moved out. That's a US Historical trend.
I don't see a problem. Texas is getting more corporate taxes, property tax, more Jobs and more Republicans. They're happy. California is happy too. They got rid of those Republicans, discriminating and made a lot of money from suing them. LMAO! WIN/WIN.
At some point it would be good for ALL societies to have a totally non bias and non ideological assessment of the intrinsic faults and deadly assumptions that keep the idea of Socialism alive.
This pernicious ideological cancer should be exposed once and for all for every thinking person to see it for the soul killing idea that it is. What must happen is all the false emotions and bogus assertions about "what is best for all" lies be stripped of their power.
Socialism has NEVER worked anywhere but it keeps being touted by academics and other elites and power mongers as a great way to help the poor. It is in fact a rule by elites and a small group without any input by the actual working class whom these same power mongers tell us they are working for to have a better life. Their appeal to fairness is a total lie since the upper crust, rich and academics always rule over the rest of society. It is a total grift that promises the world and delivers hell on earth. How this cesspool of an ideology keeps itself alive is a testament to the power of the elites and others to sell poison to people as a curative for what ails them.
It is a system based that appeals to envy and the darkest depths of what evil lurks in the hearts of many within any society. It is death dressed up as a savior that too many are fooled into believing will free them by taking by government force from others and giving it to them. At its' heart Socialism is a systematic means of legally stealing others wealth and work product by its adherents keeping a part for themselves while ruling over everyone while increasing and accumulating government supported power.
Even George Orwell thought Trotsky was right, that if you eliminated nation states, global socialism would work. I can't think of anything more terrifying than a one world government. Ingsoc scales. The only way to prevent tyranny is to prevent anyone from being able to have too much power over other people. Decentralize down to the smallest unit possible, the individual whenever possible. And don't legislate anything that doesn't need to be legislated.
It would seem that authoritarianism is a built into our DNA. It then manifests itself in an array of political beliefs having little to do with the efficacy of those beliefs. Politics is just a method of allowing the unbridled expression of that internal defect identified as authoritarianism.
Might be best to observe the behaviors of individuals and listen less to their political points of view. Again politics is just the cloak that is utilized to hide an individuals personality defect.
I am sharing this as far and wide as I can. I am going to be thinking about it for a while but there is only one thing to say as a quick response:
Remember - the original title of “Atlas Shrugged” was “The Strike”. I think the Peter Thiels and Elon Musks of the world should go on strike because there is a tipping point where the parasites and second handers take over and as another commentator said- they don’t produce anything - they only feed off the makers and the doers. We need to wise up.
I say the same thing about Rand as I do about Orwell- they were not prophets. They were merely brilliant at fictionalizing what already was and had been. Nothing new under the sun.
Beautiful reply! Such a good point and helps me with the deep conviction I hold that ultimately we should never look to other men to be our saviors... and not to get too into it all but there is only one Savior-that is where Rand as a person stops short-she puts all her faith in man. Rearden, Galt, D'Anconia do not exist, never have and never could.
All we can do is try to do our best, little by little and aim to hit the mark. Hopefully that is what Musk is doing in some way. We shall see:)
As I said I have great respect for Musk, especially with what he's done at SpaceX. The costs and complexity involved to get into orbit are enormous. But Tesla's road to success was paved with huge state and federal tax incentives for the upper class so they could buy discounted luxury cars and get cheap energy through solar installations. I don't think that's the type of hero Ayn Rand would write about.
Only about 15% of the US population actually pays taxes to the IRS the rest pay enough to cover their own expense and 60% of workers get back more in credits and deductions than they paid in taxes while. Less than 1/2 the total population is working that other more than 1/2 NOT WORKING are being supported by the 15%.
Gee; most people in jail are Men; should we strive for equal female "can I say that?" representation? Black Men are overrepresented in basketball "because they're better at it"; should we strive for more white players? Asians are overrepresented in STEM, should, scratch that. Have you seen any trans Men competing in high end sports, obviously we must have more. We keep trying to prove thing's that just aren't so because politically they should be so, so we use the legal sledgehammer to pretend that Men and Women are the same; they're not. We complement each other. I lived through the good ol days when the fight was against discrimination and it was mostly won and rightly so. Now the the fight is "for" discrimination to reimagine society and the SJ warrior industrial complex is big bucks doing big obstruction. Other than Tesla that I'd like to see unionized, all the other corporations are virtual, producing nothing and that's a microcosm of the country, producing nothing.
Robert, Here in Quebec there is an impenetrable wall between church and state. On the state side of the wall there is no such thing as gender, race or religion. The state defines itself as a secular humanist liberal democracy it does not dispense moral guidance it writes law.
The complete set of laws on abortion here in Quebec don't need lawyers. The law in Quebec is only medical doctors can perform abortions.
Funny how strange the world seems. I love Quebec but Quebecers are just like everybody else. It's the culture. The culture defines the economy and the economy is how the society functions. We still remember the poverty and insecurity we lived in even if we forget who was responsible.
Rene Levesque was a journalist in FDR's European command. The GOP has always called FDR a traitor. They believe him a traitor to both his class and America's landlords which is what we the people meant in 1776. Seventeen percent could read and most of those were female chattel. When you can't read in 1776 the town crier and local gossip is all you know.
Quebec has a culture unlike the rest of Canada and the USA McCulture. Some things are better forgotten; the past and future only exist in the mind, nowhere else. A house divided against itself cannot stand, that's still true. Divide and conquer is also still a basic principle of the ruling classes. I find it quite amazing that little Quebec can keep it's language and culture in north America with the toxic amerikan McCulture taking over the western world.
The election campaign is beginning and our Premier was a great leader for these times. He promised to retire at 65 but thinks he still has something to offer. Fatal flaws seem to accompany would be leaders.
He may be turning a permanent majority into a fringe party living in the 20th century and the time when he was educated in economics. Sixty years later Levesque looks like a prophet.
I want to know why a great leader cannot step down a great leader and avoid going down in history as a madman. I think the presidency needs a two week term limit. We have the technology. Why don't we use it?
Maybe in 2024 we could get Zelensky for a week or two.
I can't wait for the sympathetic profile of Wipper in one of the legacy media outlets, wherein she suffered online harassment because big, bad Matt Taibbi said mean things about her, and that she is therefore the Real Victim (TM) in all of this.
No one covers gargantuan political train wrecks like Taibbi does. Looking forward to part 3. Well, somewhat. I have a feeling the details are going to get even more outrageously stupid.
I saw Butt Plugs and Lubricant at Coachella in 1993.
CA is a shithole. It just is. Socialism made what is undoubtedly one of the most geographically blessed locations in the world into a suffocating miasma of crazy Left wing ideals. It's just sad. I'd close the Fremont plant. Musk has his proof of concept. You CAN have an auto manufacturing plant in CA. Doesn't mean you should.
I went to college in CA in the last years of last century. Amazing place. But even then, the specter of totalitarianism seeped everywhere. I wouldn't want to live there ever.
Every time I go back to California it seems to be incrementally worse, and that makes me sad. The land is beautiful, the weather is wonderful, and it really is chock full of very talented people. It's a real shame that state has been so woefully mismanaged.
To me CA is like a rich addict surrounded by enablers that actively encourage the drug use. There's no way out of the spiral until the person either dies or truly hits the bottom. Everybody agrees that status quo is not sustainable. My prediction is that Democratic elite would get so out of touch that there will be a massive rebellion amongst traditional Black and Hispanic Democratic voters. You think your average US born Hispanic whose family came, from let's say, Mexico or Guatemala, wants to pay $7 for a gallon of regular in LA? Fuck no.
I follow a lot in the gaming space, and even in the part of the culture that pushes back against the excesses of games journalists there is blanket condemnation of Activision, it's CEO Bobby Kotick in specific. Pointing to this litigation is a big part of it.
The allegations vs the proclamations of culpability and the way it gets characterized is a pretzel knot of logic.
I've been getting my oppositional fix recently in following a flow of legal cases where the media has said one thing very loudly, and the details coming out in court are very different. True justice boner inducing stuff.
This a great example of why we subscribe. Wonderful, thorough, actual careful reporting! You are the real deal, Matt, and I wish newsrooms would bring you or at least your articles in to show peop,people, how it's done.
"Wonderful, thorough, actual careful reporting!" Yes. To wit:
"As for the party the [Wall Street] Journal wrote about involving 'scantily clad women' who 'danced on stripper poles'? A performance of Cirque Du Soleil, according to one source who attended the event. When I asked the Journal about that and other issues, they said, 'We stand by our fair and accurate reporting on Activision.'
LOL! Matt's discoveries are priceless.
It’s hard to believe anyone could characterize a cirque performance as scantily clad women on stripper poles, not least because I’ve never seen one without men as well as women. Thanks to Matt for taking the time to wade into all of this, because it’s terribly tedious, as well as tragic for California.
Really says it all, I think.
Don’t worry about being cancelled, folks. Live as you wish. They’ll just make shit up anyway.
I have worked in PR for several different large companies. While WSJ is one of the more respectable publications, I have personal experience with one of their reporters who ignored facts to write the story that she wanted to tell. Trust no one!
The corporate media suppressed stories like this. Wrong narrative.
Did not need to suppress it. The corporate media was fed the story directly and bought it no questions asked. Thy are hand in hand with their government counterparts. That, along with the age old problem that the long form investigative journalism like this that are necessary to get to the root of the matters do not apply to the click driven media market.
Our once productive nation has been riddled with cancerous parasites. Parasites & looters go where the money is. Since they have nothing valuable to offer, they scheme & plot all sorts of nefarious ways to get at what they could not earn in a free market. Expect the same band of looters & parasites to eventually flock to Texas and take up residence there, after California has completed its descent into a permanent hellhole.
These "parasites and looters" were highlighted and identified in the novel "Atlas Shrugged" a sometimes flawed but powerful novel that is suddenly relevant in today's destruction of California's business community by social justice neo-Communists posing as gov't regulators.
These grifters and parasites are the inevitable result of low IQ gov't employees being given powers they can utilize for their own self-aggrandizement and to compensate for their lack of talent and mediocre abilities. Power and lack of intelligence are a deadly toxic mix that all too often are evidenced by the gov't bureaucrats who swarm every agency in D.C. Time to make some effort to root these pernicious turds from any agency with punitive powers.
I used to mock that novel. I thought the bad guys were simply not believable. “They are cartoonish” I said. I don’t think that anymore and realize how naive I was.
The heroes are less believable, I think. At least in the way they speak. The villains, though...Rand had experience with the kind of parasitic grifters who populate her book, the heroes were mostly wished-for fantasies.
Like anyone surrounded by villains and bullies (Communists of Russia) she created super heros to put a stop to those powerful monsters. It is the way many of us stay sane. Maybe Trump has become that super hero to many who are sick of being bullied and discounted by today's powerful elites and academics. Like the French revolution the reaction to the Royals and others will be way over the line but understandable. When the winds start ton blow there might not be a place to hide. Try studying the Cultural Revolution in China to see how the government opened societies relief valve to blow off the pressure built up by that same horrid government. The resentment and anger is now bing allowed to reach the boiling point in the USA.
I don't think the issue is lack of intelligence. They are slick enough. The issue is moral bankruptcy combined with a complete lack of vision or innovation. They can't offer goods or services people want to buy, so, like buzzards and jackals, they feed on the carcasses of better people.
Intelligence and wisdom are two pretty different things. Stupid "smart" people are as dangerous a child with a gun. Many smart people cannot change a flat tire or do many practical things yet they seem to always be in charge of programs and policies that effect those that can do actual practical things. Intelligence without experience or the wisdom "to know what you don't know" is a dangerous aspect of human life that seems to be ascendant in our current society.
Society is like a watch that smart people just wind up to keep going but others need to repair it when it is broken. Don't know a single academic professor I would call on if my survival depended on his/her abilities.
I do, but they are in Engineering and health professions.
Yes there are many "professionals" who contribute to our society but they are not stupid smart people. They are the individuals who make society work. Many University Professors live in rarified precincts where practical considerations are left to others.
Just like the corporate and finance wizards who could not buy their own groceries if they were ever hungry. Or for that matter, turn on the stove.
We see this in tech fields: "Smart people innovate. Corporate CEOs 'acquire'."
From there, they either bastardize of suppress what might have become an "innovation", or an "improvement" or even *GASP* a "competitive alternative to our companies services".
Can't have that.
Sounds a lot like the 300 mile carburetor that the automotive industry suppressed. Then we got fuel injectors and that story went away. The entire idea of innovators being "bought out" to maximize profits has been a meme for generations. Probably just another conspiracy tale that is built into societies DNA. Either it is corporations or rich people making money off other peoples ideas.
Problem is we create millionaires by the score every year in America and the patent infringement industry is a lawyers bread and butter usually practiced against other corporations not for the benefit of those "garage" inventors. But the barroom tales of corporate theft of the little guys ideas will probably persist forever.
Anytime you get an entire profession that exists to make money off other people's inventions it's parasitic, regardless of who actually came up with the original idea.
A lot of individuals have good ideas and solutions to problems. The ability to monetize and get these "ideas" out there and have them popularized usually takes a very different set of skills. Ideas are one thing but it takes a real team to make them a reality. The salesman who sell the product for a profit could be considered by some as parasitic. Many peoples inventions have languished on their work benches or garages for years before someone found a way to make them a reality for other people.
Free markets vs the corporate state….
Corporations like most any bureaucracy live to accumulate power, expand their reach and with corporations make money. Publicly traded companies can make money for their shareholders. Free markets can and do truncate inefficient corporations and businesses. There are trade offs in the free market but in the end it seems the best way to deliver services and products to the larger society. Central planning and government controlled distribution has failed time after time. It is NOT organic and the implementation by mediocre bureaucrats insures the failure of this method if running any society.
Elon Musk has been critical of shareholder “capitalism”/publicly held companies-and I can’t say I disagree with him. Proper industrial management is often at cross-ends with quarterly earnings…..
From patent trolling to predatory lending practices, parasites figure out a way to benefit from capitalism without actually innovating.
Being a parasite that benefits from capitalism is a type of innovating. EVERY society has individuals that put their minds to making the "system" work for them even in Communist nations. That is a very human but ugly attribute of humanity.
Yup-if you don’t consistently provide a tangible benefit to the population, or the cost outweighs the benefit, you will be gone. Hitler, Sears, Blockbuster Video, Nicolae Ceaucescu-it doesn’t matter.
That's assuming an actual free market. Crony capitalism circumvents market forces by controlling competition. Also, because they monopolize military force, it's a lot harder to get rid of Ceaucescu and Hitler than Blockbuster or Sears and they do a lot more damage on the way out.
I mean, the only reason Blockbuster went bankrupt is because the government didn't limit competition, like they do with, for instance, local internet providers.
So you’re saying anyone seeking social justice is somehow a “neo-Communist”? That’s a stretch.
".Social Justice" is a rubric that encompasses many ideologies. Currently in Western culture it has become a Communist lite ideology hiding under the umbrella of "Social Justice."
Sure social justice is a worthy cause but who defines "justice" and its component parts. The idea of delivering justice to large segments of any society by another segment of that society is pretty ambitious. Even that well organized and structured Department of Justice too often adheres to whatever political winds are blowing. Did they deliver justice to the Japanese Americans interred during WW II? What Justice was metered out to the medical profession and bureaucrats who carried out the Tuskegee atrocities. Could go on but the idea of "social Justice" is so broad and ambiguous that it easily lends itself to every form of political repression and truncating of basic rights under the guise of "doing good."
Social Justice language has become a hobgoblin terminology utilized by radical political operatives to justify almost anything. Even free speech has become truncated and suppressed in service of faux Social Justice.
Social justice is not a worthy cause. It is a nightmarish totalitarian hellhole. You can’t render justice to a society. It’s individuals who deserve justice.
I would add to @Not Me$ response to you the following:
"Social Justice", is anti-social and is antithetical to justice. Our civilization, meaning America from it's founding until its destruction in 1907 at the outset of the progressive era is founded on a legal and philosophical foundation that "social justice", is the antithesis of.
American justice is based on an objective measure of a crime. That is, it is just because a crime can only be tangible harm caused to a person or their property. It is objective because that harm must be proven using empirical evidence in a court of law adjudicated by a trial of fellow citizens who have been convinced by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
Another pillar of our society is Freedom of Association. Freedom of association is necessary to live in a free society. It means that individuals and organizations are free to choose whom they want to associate with. Another pillar that works in conjunction with this is that political action and decision making is at best a lower form of civilization because political action is coercive, whereas voluntary interaction - freely associating individuals voluntarily exchanging and interacting and bound as equals under just law of property rights and contract law, is the highest order of civilization. Self organizing, self governing individuals are truly civilized because we do not coerce. We persuade and induce by adding value to the lives of others who obtain value in the form of, meaning, satisfaction, financial well being, pride, honor, satisfaction ... to those who voluntarily associate and transact with us.
Progressivism is really a regression. It is a fiction of civilization where those with political power use the force of government to boss others around. What Taibbi is pointing out is that the bureaucracy is really just a wealth leeching extortion racket. "Social Justice", is just a fig leaf that gives the bureaucrats the legal cover to extort wealth from companies and individuals.
120 years of Progressivism has destroyed the golden egg laying goose, in a myriad of ways from the Central Bank to this regime of, "Social Justice", that is in reality antithetical to Justice. If these lawyers want more women or racial, "minorities", hired why don't they form a company and hire them? Surely they are horribly mistreated and would jump at an opportunity to work for a firm that paid and treated them better. Surely they would have a competitive advantage over the supposedly discriminatory firms who lost their work force to a more just employer who keeps them happy and productive as they destroy the discriminatory and bad firms. Or, surely these greedy companies who can hire women for far less would get rid of all male employees and/or white employees and hire only women and racial, "minorities", at a 25% discount to save money and goose profits while destroying their competitors on price.
Oh! But that doesn't happen! You know why? Because it is a lie that the reality of the market exposes every single day but dumb ass Progressives and their fantasies of, "social justice", support. It is easy to sit around and live in the comforts of capitalism and enjoy all of its benefits and pretend you are spreading justice in the world. In reality you are spreading corruption and upending a just legal order as the unwitting tool of the Great Parasite Army of Lawyers And Bureaucrats. It is neo-Communism. The Communists themselves admitted it when they pivoted from class warfare to identity politics in the 1960s to institute their oppressor vs. oppressed narrative using the fig leaf of, "Social Justice."
"Social Justice", is a fraud that stands completely at odds with freedom and justice. It destroys all of the tenants of justice of the original American legal order: Freedom of Association; Freedom of Speech; Property Rights and Contract Law. Some day, men will return and re-constitute the proper legal order that incentivizes and rewards merit. This time, we will not the make mistake of enfranchising those who seek to overturn it. They can stay and reap its benefits to the extent their abilities merit their ability to benefit, but they will not be given the power to destroy it.
Reread your contract---we're paying per idea, not word.
Read the words. In them you'll get the idea, and the argumentation that supports it that is in response to the neo-Communism comment. As for you, we aren't paying by the idea or the word. If we were, nobody has gotten a payoff from you yet. We're still waiting on an idea.
If they can’t accept a societal benefit that is perceived not to be of their doing, yes, they are a neo-commie. Did any “social justice” types give Trump even passing credit for having the lowest black unemployment rate in history under his administration?!? Of course not-the commissars can’t give the kulaks any credit for anything.
The BLM president openly admitted to being a trained Marxist and Communist. Their "Social Justice" claims sure resulted in them being made rich by their requests for donations which were immediately diverted for their own utilization. Very typical of the elitist social reform types.
The bad actors in these agencies aren’t seeking social justice. Unfortunately the term is now pejorative. Because of things like this. They might not be neo-Communists. More like gangsters.
"They might not be neo-Communists. More like gangsters."
Maybe neo-Communist gangsters.
Social justice is basically Mao telling people to “bombard the headquarters.”
It’s about power.
I'd rather have regular Justice.
Try "I'm From the Government and I'm Here to Kill You" for how the Government gets away with murder. https://www.fromthegovernment.com/
Not Me$ "Power and lack of intelligence are a deadly toxic mix " Just Power it has nothing to do with Intelligence
Agreed. Intelligence doesn't make someone morally or in any other way superior. Someone can be evil and smart or evil and stupid, good and smart or good and stupid. There's no correlation at all. In fact, intelligent evil people are more dangerous because they are better at being evil.
What I was referring to was lack of intelligence within an unaccountable bureaucracy. These people are infused with power over others and that often results in a bullying mentality supported by the same bureaucracy that was organized to serve those same bullied individuals. Vicious circle.
It's the end of empire. Rome went through it along with many others. Hopefully it won't end the world in a nuclear Holocaust.
I’m not one of those idiots who think nuclear war with Russia is a good idea. But should America devolve to “nukes at down”, the reset that kind of exchange would cause might be the only practical remedy for this situation.
" But should America devolve to “nukes at down”, the reset that kind of exchange would cause might be the only practical remedy for this situation."
Professor Tom, any "reset" resulting from a nuclear exchange almost certainly would make most of us long for our current "situation," whatever its seeming problems...be careful what you wish for.
Let Trump make a deal. He got US out of 2 wars.
I’m picturing a tiny handful of woke survivors crawling from the smoking ruins of their college campuses and planning a rally to demand “justice,” then asking if anyone thinks Jamba Juice might be open.
“I played Fallout once! I got this.”
They’re agitating for that right now.
Who is John Galt.
John Galt was a Scots writer of the early 1800s who gave us the word 'Utilitarian'. Though he was scornful of those who would forgo their traditions to become the same. See here, for instance (his main work):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annals_of_the_Parish
His writing is filled with nuance & sympathy for the general human condition. Why Ayn Rand picked his name is a mystery to me.
Not going to assess Mark Ames "story" about Rand. Odd but I've read many biographies and stories about Rand without single reference to "her notebooks." or anything about Danny Renahan or the Little Street. One would think that a controversial author like Rand would have this exposed and analyzed by many other researchers.
She was University educated in Russia and did not come here until 1926 or so at age 21. This idea of her being a full blow sociopath has a taint of political smear. In any event until someone with a bit of independence fleshes out these assessments and assumptions I will stick to the mainstream profiles regarding Ms Rand.
Her so called enthrallment, without much evidence of her taking and "action," can be attributed to many things from her state of mind to her curiosity about the motivations of individuals like Hickman. FBI profilers conduct obsessive studies and research about serial killers for many legitimate reasons without them being sociopaths. Some even "admire" these monsters for their abilities to function while living with the demons in their minds.
Funny how the writings of the Marquis de Sade are referred to as imagined "libertine sexuality" by an author with a good heart but he is not castigated as a sociopath or a horrid person by many biographers. As I said I will await others assessment of Rand and her driving forces before I discount her writings.
"Ayn Rand did not admire the murderer William Hickman. On the contrary, she called him "a degenerate" and a "ruthless monster."
"The case (Hickman) showed me how society can wreck an exceptional being, and then murder him for being the wreck that it itself has created. This will be the story of the boy in my book.» (p. 38)
https://aynrand.no/did-ayn-rand-admire-killer-william-hickman/
At least you're not being hyperbolic. The problem is democracy, the political market. People, the market, want something and so vote for those people that appear willing to give it to them rather than qualified, competent people.
In this case, there are people who felt that they have not been treated fairly and voted for politicians who promised to create agencies that would act in the interest of employees who feel that they were treated unfairly. This occurred in reaction to a system that considered management and owners to be the competent, fair and qualified overseers of the work place that resulted in more or less a "good old boys" environment in which they and their friends benefited more than women and minorities.
In other words, the regulatory and law enforcement agencies deferred more to management and that created a backlash from workers that has led to a system which now defers to workers. This appears to be how democracies work, they seem to operate in undampened spasms of reactions rather than in rational, moderated moves. The issue isn't to end regulation, but in finding a far better means to solve very real problems while minimizing injustice in the process.
Guess given the movement of businesses OUT of California to Texas and other more business friendly environments those "rightwing assholes" might have a point. The cesspool named California has lost over 183,000 citizens and one House seat. Just what aspect of California society is "good" for a working or middle class person.?
The elites, political class and wealthy living behind walls and security protected gated communities seem oblivious to the reality of life in a State infested with too many homeless addicts and a political leadership who caters to the criminal class way before even considering the taxpaying drones who must live in this wealth divided corporate run "utopia." Population shifts are a pretty accurate mark of the failures of political leadership. Even many Democrats are running for their lives away from Calif.
Florida is growing like topsy and has the normal growth pains in some areas. Calif. seems to have over managed itself in to a modern 3 world country. The gap between rich and poor is as large as the Grand Canyon.
Your view of "right wing assholes" presupposes that the left is "asshole" free. If true please explain Baltimore, NYC, Chicago and other major cities run by left wing geniuses. Not defending right wingers but like any fringe political position they have many less than responsible adherents. Given the actual damage and loss of lives caused by the radical left over the last few decades and last year I'll just say that the assholes on the right are pretty benign when compared to the political shock troops utilized by the Democrats.
Totally agree. Being "asshole free" is the same as being "Full of $hit".
My guess is you have not visited Austin or other big cities in Texas recently. They are currently pretty diverse and populated with every spectrum of voter. Broad brushing an entire State with negative invective is a pretty telling sign that you are less than well versed about that States residence population.
I always find it interesting how many leftists seem so arrogant when talking about places NOT run by other leftists. The entire "fly over" mentality is so pernicious that those bubble dwelling denizens just don;'t know what they don't know but are so sure of their "knowledge" that they summarily reject even thinking about others as fellow Americans.
BTW lynchings were a common form of "justice" in the wild west. Many whites and Blacks were lynched without a trial. Not right but NOT just a Texas thing. Lynchings took place in NYC as late as 1863 during the draft riots. And they had organized police forces.
Not lying:
Brexit Is a Cultural Revolution
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/what-brexit-means-europe/600583/
https://www.democraticaudit.com/2016/07/21/the-ultimate-causes-of-brexit-history-culture-and-geography/
I'm an Independent. I believe in the right to and abortion for every women, I am against the Patriot act, I am against Corporate loopholes.
Facts are facts. Just because I qualify them doesn't mean they're cherry picked. NO LEFT media will even acknowledge Census facts.
EX: It's the "CENSUS REPLACEMENT PREDICTION" that Democrats don't want you to know about, It's not a THEORY!
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/newsroom/releases/2015/cb15-tps16_graphic.pdf
The Greatest Lynching in American History: New York, 1863
https://confederateshop.com/shop/books/civil-war-history/the-greatest-lynching-in-american-history-new-york-1863
Mississippi was the state where most people were lynched with an estimated 581 victims, 93% of whom were black. Georgia saw the second most lynchings, with 531 in total.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1175147/lynching-by-race-state-and-race/
UK saw what happened in the US and ... BREXIT! They were intelligent enough NOT to put up with it.
We moved to 78666, where highway 123 intersects FM 2222
It was a culmination of things. Just keep reading…
And it worked.
Companies that moved from California to Texas.
https://www.concordia.edu/blog/19-corporations-and-businesses-fleeing-california-for-texas.html
(add TESLA and Oracle makes it 21)
https://chiefexecutive.net/business-exodus-california-troubling-sanctuary-policies/
What do you think the cause is? The CEO of Hewlett Packard is a women so it can't really be discrimination. And there are only 3% blacks in all of California. Hispanics took their jobs and they moved out. That's a US Historical trend.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2020/01/13/women-now-hold-more-jobs-than-men/?sh=250163b38f8a
I don't see a problem. They were harassed and sued so they took their business elsewhere.
"Number of Foreign College Students Staying and Working in U.S. After Graduation Surges"
Federal training program sees 400% increase in foreign students graduating and working in STEM fields from 2008 to 2016
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/05/10/number-of-foreign-college-students-staying-and-working-in-u-s-after-graduation-surges/
We got rid of STEM Advanced Placement because it was White elitism making some kids feel bad about themselves.
I don't see a problem. Texas is getting more corporate taxes, property tax, more Jobs and more Republicans. They're happy. California is happy too. They got rid of those Republicans, discriminating and made a lot of money from suing them. LMAO! WIN/WIN.
At some point it would be good for ALL societies to have a totally non bias and non ideological assessment of the intrinsic faults and deadly assumptions that keep the idea of Socialism alive.
This pernicious ideological cancer should be exposed once and for all for every thinking person to see it for the soul killing idea that it is. What must happen is all the false emotions and bogus assertions about "what is best for all" lies be stripped of their power.
Socialism has NEVER worked anywhere but it keeps being touted by academics and other elites and power mongers as a great way to help the poor. It is in fact a rule by elites and a small group without any input by the actual working class whom these same power mongers tell us they are working for to have a better life. Their appeal to fairness is a total lie since the upper crust, rich and academics always rule over the rest of society. It is a total grift that promises the world and delivers hell on earth. How this cesspool of an ideology keeps itself alive is a testament to the power of the elites and others to sell poison to people as a curative for what ails them.
It is a system based that appeals to envy and the darkest depths of what evil lurks in the hearts of many within any society. It is death dressed up as a savior that too many are fooled into believing will free them by taking by government force from others and giving it to them. At its' heart Socialism is a systematic means of legally stealing others wealth and work product by its adherents keeping a part for themselves while ruling over everyone while increasing and accumulating government supported power.
Even George Orwell thought Trotsky was right, that if you eliminated nation states, global socialism would work. I can't think of anything more terrifying than a one world government. Ingsoc scales. The only way to prevent tyranny is to prevent anyone from being able to have too much power over other people. Decentralize down to the smallest unit possible, the individual whenever possible. And don't legislate anything that doesn't need to be legislated.
Good thought, Scuba Cat.
Thanks.
I bought some socialism a few days ago but now after reading your one-star review I'm returning it.
Narnia chronicle for the crazy aunt in the attic.
It would seem that authoritarianism is a built into our DNA. It then manifests itself in an array of political beliefs having little to do with the efficacy of those beliefs. Politics is just a method of allowing the unbridled expression of that internal defect identified as authoritarianism.
Might be best to observe the behaviors of individuals and listen less to their political points of view. Again politics is just the cloak that is utilized to hide an individuals personality defect.
I am sharing this as far and wide as I can. I am going to be thinking about it for a while but there is only one thing to say as a quick response:
Remember - the original title of “Atlas Shrugged” was “The Strike”. I think the Peter Thiels and Elon Musks of the world should go on strike because there is a tipping point where the parasites and second handers take over and as another commentator said- they don’t produce anything - they only feed off the makers and the doers. We need to wise up.
I say the same thing about Rand as I do about Orwell- they were not prophets. They were merely brilliant at fictionalizing what already was and had been. Nothing new under the sun.
Why do we always let it go too far?
I have a lot of respect for Musk, but the billions upon billions of government subsidies he's gladly taken mean he's no Hank Rearden.
Beautiful reply! Such a good point and helps me with the deep conviction I hold that ultimately we should never look to other men to be our saviors... and not to get too into it all but there is only one Savior-that is where Rand as a person stops short-she puts all her faith in man. Rearden, Galt, D'Anconia do not exist, never have and never could.
All we can do is try to do our best, little by little and aim to hit the mark. Hopefully that is what Musk is doing in some way. We shall see:)
As I said I have great respect for Musk, especially with what he's done at SpaceX. The costs and complexity involved to get into orbit are enormous. But Tesla's road to success was paved with huge state and federal tax incentives for the upper class so they could buy discounted luxury cars and get cheap energy through solar installations. I don't think that's the type of hero Ayn Rand would write about.
The Tow Truck Drivers Association of California should have lobbied to keep that charging station out. Funny.
I do miss California's wonderful parks.
Only about 15% of the US population actually pays taxes to the IRS the rest pay enough to cover their own expense and 60% of workers get back more in credits and deductions than they paid in taxes while. Less than 1/2 the total population is working that other more than 1/2 NOT WORKING are being supported by the 15%.
Ayn's not looking so bad.
Gee; most people in jail are Men; should we strive for equal female "can I say that?" representation? Black Men are overrepresented in basketball "because they're better at it"; should we strive for more white players? Asians are overrepresented in STEM, should, scratch that. Have you seen any trans Men competing in high end sports, obviously we must have more. We keep trying to prove thing's that just aren't so because politically they should be so, so we use the legal sledgehammer to pretend that Men and Women are the same; they're not. We complement each other. I lived through the good ol days when the fight was against discrimination and it was mostly won and rightly so. Now the the fight is "for" discrimination to reimagine society and the SJ warrior industrial complex is big bucks doing big obstruction. Other than Tesla that I'd like to see unionized, all the other corporations are virtual, producing nothing and that's a microcosm of the country, producing nothing.
Robert, Here in Quebec there is an impenetrable wall between church and state. On the state side of the wall there is no such thing as gender, race or religion. The state defines itself as a secular humanist liberal democracy it does not dispense moral guidance it writes law.
The complete set of laws on abortion here in Quebec don't need lawyers. The law in Quebec is only medical doctors can perform abortions.
https://www.quebec.ca/en/health/health-system-and-services/service-organization/abortion-services/
Democracy without separation of church and state is a one word oxymoron.
Religion has evolved for 70,000 years. It desperately needs to start evolving again.
America's fundamentalism is barely more than a century old and look at the damage it has already done in the Amazon.
Agree and I love Quebec.
Funny how strange the world seems. I love Quebec but Quebecers are just like everybody else. It's the culture. The culture defines the economy and the economy is how the society functions. We still remember the poverty and insecurity we lived in even if we forget who was responsible.
Rene Levesque was a journalist in FDR's European command. The GOP has always called FDR a traitor. They believe him a traitor to both his class and America's landlords which is what we the people meant in 1776. Seventeen percent could read and most of those were female chattel. When you can't read in 1776 the town crier and local gossip is all you know.
La plus ca change.
Quebec has a culture unlike the rest of Canada and the USA McCulture. Some things are better forgotten; the past and future only exist in the mind, nowhere else. A house divided against itself cannot stand, that's still true. Divide and conquer is also still a basic principle of the ruling classes. I find it quite amazing that little Quebec can keep it's language and culture in north America with the toxic amerikan McCulture taking over the western world.
The election campaign is beginning and our Premier was a great leader for these times. He promised to retire at 65 but thinks he still has something to offer. Fatal flaws seem to accompany would be leaders.
He may be turning a permanent majority into a fringe party living in the 20th century and the time when he was educated in economics. Sixty years later Levesque looks like a prophet.
I want to know why a great leader cannot step down a great leader and avoid going down in history as a madman. I think the presidency needs a two week term limit. We have the technology. Why don't we use it?
Maybe in 2024 we could get Zelensky for a week or two.
I can't wait for the sympathetic profile of Wipper in one of the legacy media outlets, wherein she suffered online harassment because big, bad Matt Taibbi said mean things about her, and that she is therefore the Real Victim (TM) in all of this.
No one covers gargantuan political train wrecks like Taibbi does. Looking forward to part 3. Well, somewhat. I have a feeling the details are going to get even more outrageously stupid.
Agreed. It’s headdesk-inducing.
I saw Butt Plugs and Lubricant at Coachella in 1993.
CA is a shithole. It just is. Socialism made what is undoubtedly one of the most geographically blessed locations in the world into a suffocating miasma of crazy Left wing ideals. It's just sad. I'd close the Fremont plant. Musk has his proof of concept. You CAN have an auto manufacturing plant in CA. Doesn't mean you should.
I went to college in CA in the last years of last century. Amazing place. But even then, the specter of totalitarianism seeped everywhere. I wouldn't want to live there ever.
Every time I go back to California it seems to be incrementally worse, and that makes me sad. The land is beautiful, the weather is wonderful, and it really is chock full of very talented people. It's a real shame that state has been so woefully mismanaged.
To me CA is like a rich addict surrounded by enablers that actively encourage the drug use. There's no way out of the spiral until the person either dies or truly hits the bottom. Everybody agrees that status quo is not sustainable. My prediction is that Democratic elite would get so out of touch that there will be a massive rebellion amongst traditional Black and Hispanic Democratic voters. You think your average US born Hispanic whose family came, from let's say, Mexico or Guatemala, wants to pay $7 for a gallon of regular in LA? Fuck no.
Thanks for writing this Matt.
I follow a lot in the gaming space, and even in the part of the culture that pushes back against the excesses of games journalists there is blanket condemnation of Activision, it's CEO Bobby Kotick in specific. Pointing to this litigation is a big part of it.
The allegations vs the proclamations of culpability and the way it gets characterized is a pretzel knot of logic.
I've been getting my oppositional fix recently in following a flow of legal cases where the media has said one thing very loudly, and the details coming out in court are very different. True justice boner inducing stuff.
"media has said one thing very loudly, and the details coming out in court are very different"
Seems to be standard operating procedure these days. Just ask Kyle Rittenhouse. And they wonder why trust in media is cratering.
I am so pleased I decided to follow Matt. There are so few investigative journalists left. Who else would you recommend?
Glenn Greenwald and Michael Tracy come to mind.
Bari Weiss (Common Sense), Freddie deBoer, and Glenn Loury. Enjoy them all.