If you want more democracy you belong to a cult
The esteemed liberal Brookings Institute just published a - well I'm not sure what to call it - white paper or hit job. Two of its senior fellows, Jonathan Rauch and Benjamin Wittes, make the argument that more democracy is bad because regular people are stupid and ignorant, and they should just let their betters the elite professional political class handle things. In other words, people like the two of them.
It seems they don't much like rubes and grassroots reformers like you and I being too involved in the political system by which we choose our representatives and political leaders. In their own words:
Unfortunately, the country and the political-reform community have come to expect far too much from increased political participation. Participation is effective only when supplemented by intermediation, the work done by institutions (such as political parties) and substantive professionals (such as career politicians and experts) to organize, interpret, and buffer popular sentiment. In this essay, we argue that restoring and strengthening political institutions and intermediation belong at the center of a modern political-reform agenda.
To cut through their excessive use of jargon, the essential claim they are making is that the majority of Americans need to be spoonfed by political professionals what we should believe and the policies and issues we should care about. They are the experts after all. We are just dumb, ignorant hicks that don't know what is good for us. But even assuming voters could become better informed about what is truly necessary to make our political system function, they still don't think increased participation at the grassroots level is a viable option for our society.
Even implausibly well-informed and rational voters could not approach the level of knowledge and sophistication needed to make the kinds of decisions that routinely confront the government today. Professional and specialist decisionmaking is essential, and those who demonize it as elitist or anti-democratic can offer no plausible alternative to it.
The world is just too complicated, you see, for our little tiny minds to understand it all. We need the elite professional political class to guide us by the hand to a better world. Or so they argue interminably and to my mind quite condescendingly. The principle assumption they make is that only people like the two of them and the political parties and institutions who employ them, are up to the challenge of fashioning a truly good society. We proles should learn our proper place - under their boot heels.
[T]he predominant ethos of the political-reform community remains committed to enhancing individual political participation. This is a costly oversight. Some populist reform ideas are better than others, but, as a class, they have eclipsed a more promising reform target: strengthening intermediating actors such as political professionals and party organizations.
Quoting James Madison out of context, they argue that direct democracy can only lead to mob rule, the tyranny of the majority. What they seem to have disregarded is that Madison was concerned for protecting the rights of minorities. That's the sole function of the Bill of Rights after all, to provide a check on legislative majorities running roughshod over the individual liberties and rights of the people. It's ironic that the publication of this manifesto comes shortly after the leader of Britain's Tories has called for a massive crackdown on individual liberty in the interest of protecting the "homeland" from terrorism. Human rights are merely a hindrance to effective governance, it seems.
Indeed, this is precisely the problem we face in America. We have a system that supports the interests of a very few at the expense of the many and look where that has landed us. An out of control military industrial complex spreading destructive and illegal wars around the world, mass incarceration, enhanced government surveillance at a level unthinkable only a few decades ago, a declining mortality rate and an economy that is stagnant, at best, and devastating at worst, for the majority of Americans who struggle to make ends meet. Meanwhile, wealthy investors, hedge fund owners and CEO's of large corporations use the government as their private playground to feather their own nests, through legalized bribery that allows them to control the political process of the two major parties and select the candidates we are allowed once every two years to vote for or against. Yet in the authors' humble opinion, voter participation is vastly overrated and the job political specialists and professionals perform is vastly underrated and unappreciated.
That is why they claim we need a small number of elite politicians, establishment journalists and pundits, think tanks and political parties beholden to their wealthiest donors to control our political process and discourse. The sheer audacity of their argument is astonishingly narcissistic and insulting. How anyone can propose not only letting our country's current state of affairs continue, but also the strengthening of the very institutions and individuals used by the plutocrats to marginalize us and diminish our economic and political power is beyond me. But, then again, my yearly income and career does not depend on mouthing such hypocrisy and passing it off as a valid intellectual argument for maintaining the status quo.
If you want to raise your blood pressure significantly, please, read the entire piece of horse manure they wasted so much time and effort writing. But, more significantly remember that these people, when they publish such screeds, are doing the bidding of politicians like the Clintons, the Obamas, and all the other grasping, greedy and corrupt leaders of the Democratic party. They wouldn't have dared to unmask their naked ambition so clearly a year ago. However, the rise of Bernie Sanders and grassroots activism from the left, along with the election of the faux populist Trump over their beloved status quo selection, Hillary Clinton, has finally led them to reveal themselves as the ugly and monstrous creatures they truly are, and how little they think of those of us who oppose the disastrous rule of these elite puppets of the Oligarchy.
Comments
And they'll use the daily outrage
from that dumbass in the White House to make their case. Many will buy into it, unfortunately. Hell, many are already proud owners of just such an attitude.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
A trip
to the woodshed and a hickory stick would be too good for these two snot nosed asshats. Actually, the brookings institute has has turned into nothing more than a mouthpiece for the elites.
Thanks Steven.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
This is a great catch
Thanks so much for sharing!
Why am I worrying my
pretty little head over this political nonsense. Silly me. I should be out shopping, attending concerts and sporting events, watching reality shows and mind-numbing teevee vomit instead of trying to have a better life with a more representative gubmit.
Silly me!
"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11
And really, you also seem to care
about the rest of the world and what is happening to actual, you know, like, people. For shame.... You're only supposed to care about the celebrity type peoples, not actual human beings being slaughtered daily for profit. We're all just so damned silly, we really need to grow up and just go shopping!
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
The first step now to change is to define the anti-forces
and Bernie simplified it, but the enemy is the elites. There is some sum of money+power that seems to make those who have it become conservative for themselves. Pull the ladder up and away. No more wanted at the party.
Setting up societies with this as an unspoken aspiration (without part 2: we do not accept Others) may also be a basis for negative reactions to refugee immigrants across the world.
Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.
Leave it to the corporate-owned entities
…like Brookings to propose how to rule over mankind. The founders were right about the universal principles that emerged out of the Age of Reason. So, the very idea that "parties" and "party leaders" have a role to play in governing is repugnant, especially when one is limited to the polarizing tyranny of two. John Adams noted:
On the other hand, there is nothing more soul crushing than a democracy in the hands of an ignorant, misinformed, and uneducated people — especially in a complex world. It would be one thing if Americans had even the most basic of individual human rights — like the right to freedom from hunger, or the right to education, or the right to shelter or health care (the necessary components of true liberty). Even the most primitive societies provide these rights/needs to the utmost extent that they are able because the very survival of the tribe depends upon them. But Americans do not even know enough to demand foundational human rights for themselves (assuming they are the government), so that democracy in their hands is not particularly useful, as is obvious when one looks around them.
In any case, it has been known since the time of Plato's Republic that democracy is incompatible with capitalism and the unfettered combination always leads to oligarchy rule of the worst sort. That's pretty easy to see, even without an education. And that should be the people's starting point in problem solving their situation. However, if the inverse relationship between capitalism and democracy is not perfectly clear to the people, it leaves Americans vulnerable to corporate-owned organizations like Brookings, who hold excessive influence over our government. We become too easily indentured, enslaved, and incarcerated.
From On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder, Professor of History at Yale University:
Yes, it's hard to take responsibility for making decisions about the future. But there is one thing we do know that can light the way: The systems we have created and the decisions we have made since 1960 do not benefit the people and do not give them the tools they need to become a healthy society. Instead, the systems we have created degrade society in every way and offer no protection against the selfish and greedy and sociopathic elements of mankind. Every decision going forward should be analyzed under this light.
In my view, this is the time for visionaries. The people will rise up for a visionary. A politician is the last thing the people want or need.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Right now if a visionary were to rise up
he would be shot.
Bingo!
it was clear by the summer of '68 that the day of leaders was dead. There'd have to be a spontaneous upwelling of Democracy, or slavery was assured. Maybe soft chains; maybe hard. If we can avoid demogogs ... We'll first have to have an America One movement, getting everyone focused on talking about how the two- party tyranny is a curse in the lives of ALL Americans.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
I think this article compliments your comment.
The author writes about how the Ford and Rockefeller foundations rewrote American history by taking control of education in the 1940's.
We Have Met the Evil Empire and It is Us
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
"The Founders rejected elite rule" my ass.
And Rauch is a consulting editor at The Atlantic?
Still, there's that awesome
record of success in leadership the professionals have demonstrated since the coup d'etat of Nov. 22, 1963.
Things have never been better!
Btw, who funds Brookings? http://www.blacklistednews.com/Should_U.S._Taxpayers_Be_Funding_the_Broo...
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
Thanks
I had not known that.
Per usual, it is follow the money.
more propaganda form the NYT
tptb are losing it slowly but surely.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/06/lee-camp-write-propaganda-ny-time...
This past Thursday the New York Times vomited up a hit piece on little ol’ me – a guy who has been doing stand-up comedy for nearly 20 years and thought maybe that comedy could be used to inform and inspire audiences, rather than just make fun of the differences between men and women.
At first when you’re the center of a smear job, you’re annoyed and frustrated. But as I read further through the piece, I realized it was a master class in how to write propaganda for one of the most “respected” news outlets in our country. I’m actually grateful it was written about me because now I can see with my own eyes exactly how the glorious chicanery is done. I count no less than 15 lies, manipulations, and false implications in this short article, a score that even our fearless prevaricator-in-chief Donald Trump would envy.
So here now is a “How To” for writing propaganda for the New York Times – using the smear piece against me as an example.
Step One: Prime the Readers
The author Jason Zinoman starts the piece this way:
Last week, Lee Camp, an acerbic left-wing comic, dedicated six minutes of his topical TV show, “Redacted Tonight,” to the discredited conspiracy theory that it wasn’t Russian hackers who leaked emails during the presidential election but Seth Rich, the Democratic National Committee staff member killed in a botched robbery
Okay, folks, we’re off to the races. Now what does one take from that opening paragraph?
I bet you assumed that this crank, Lee Camp, did a segment bolstering a discredited nonsense theory about the death of DNC staffer Seth Rich.
But in fact, the segment I performed on-air does nothing but cast doubts on the theory that Seth Rich was murdered for the leaked e-mails. You can watch the segment here and judge for yourself.
Zinoman does go on in the next paragraph to say “Mr. Camp’s tepid take — he doesn’t know the truth, but he’s skeptical.” So despite Zinoman’s sheepish second-paragraph admission that I didn’t back the conspiracy theory, he’s already made use of a nice little psychology trick called “priming.” His opening paragraph has primed the reader to believe I give credence to discredited conspiracy theories. That, along with the title of the article – “An American Comic on a Russian Channel: What He Avoids Speaks Volumes” – has set the reader up to believe I’m a Russian agent of sorts putting forward conspiracies and our brave Ivy League author has been able to spot my sinister plot. (Thank god he was here or the plot might very well have destroyed America!) And in fact Zinoman goes on to reference the Seth Rich segment multiple times as if I had supported the theories.
That brings us to our next propaganda trick….
Step Two: Guilt by Association
That Mr. Camp does this on RT — which describes itself as the ‘Russian view on global news’ and which paid Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, to speak at the gala where he sat next to Vladimir V. Putin — raises questions about the comedian’s independence, particularly when he delves into the conspiracy about Mr. Rich. Just last month, Andrew Feinberg, a former White House reporter for Sputnik, another Russian-financed media outlet, said that his bosses ‘wanted the Seth Rich story pushed.’
So now he’s somehow looping in me and my comedy news show with Michael Flynn, Putin, Sputnik (the radio channel), Seth Rich conspiracies, and I’m pretty sure he mentioned something about me hanging out with Bill Cosby.
Here’s the problem with that paragraph – I have nothing to do with Sputnik. I have nothing to do with Michael Flynn, Andrew Feinberg, nor Vladimir Putin. I have never spoken to or met any of them. (Nor do I speak Russian, so a conversation with Putin would consist of me grunting and trying to act out references to The Hunt For Red October.) I have never been told by anyone at RT America to say anything about Seth Rich, nor have I seen anyone being told to talk about Seth Rich, nor did my segment even support the theory that he was killed by the DNC.
So basically nothing in that paragraph has anything to do with me, but Zinoman wants to lead you to believe it does. This technique is called “guilt by association,” although Zinoman couldn’t actually find the “association” part so he just included a paragraph about these people to imply guilt by association. Subconsciously the reader is left to think, “If Lee Camp didn’t have anything to do with any of those things, then our fearless author would never have brought any of it up.”
Furthermore, Zinoman is correct that RT has said in the past that they are “the Russian view on global news” in the same way BBC has said in the past that they are “the British view of global news.” However, BBC also creates many shows that are outside the realm of straight news – such as Dr. Who. I’ve rarely heard anyone accuse Dr. Who of being the British view of global news. (Why do those crazy Brits always insist on taking flying police boxes to go everywhere?)
My show, written by me and my correspondents, is certainly not the Russian view of global news and neither is – for example – Larry King’s show on RT America. (I get that Dr. Who is further afield of news than my show is, but the analogy is simply meant to say these networks create shows that are not strictly straight news.) And anyone who thinks CNN, for instance, isn’t the American view of global news is kidding themselves. But I have to agree that CNN’s Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown did a terrible job of covering the terror attacks in London.
I speak only for my show – I don’t speak for any other show on RT America. I write the words I say on Redacted Tonight and have never been told I have to say anything. Compare that to… (Oh, so many examples to choose from! How can I only pick one?!)… let’s say Melissa Harris Perry on MSNBC. After being forced out she said she was censored often. As an example she said – close to showtime – that she was told not to cover Beyonce’s Black Panther inspired Super Bowl halftime show. In no uncertain terms MSNBC heads stopped her from talking about it. Perry was literally forbidden from discussing the two most popular things to ever exist on our planet earth – Beyonce and the Super Bowl (and I’m including food and sex).
Now that we’ve established a good foundation of guilt by association (without the association) and some priming and some baseless implications, it’s time to move on to:
Step Three: Write Off Good Attributes That Don’t Fit the Storyline
Mr. Camp’s hard-edge critique of corporate greed and American policy is genuine; he was taking this line in his stand-up act before working for RT. But context matters.
Writing about the fact that I have spent nearly two decades involved in comedy, much of it political, much of it trying to make America better, trying to stand up for people over profit… well, that just wouldn’t fit with the author’s theme. So he had to find a way to get this stumbling block out of the way of his race to propaganda victory! He did that by casually mentioning the good attributes before writing them off as meaningless. My work and what I stand for is beside the point because “context matters.”
Step Four: It’s What the Person Doesn’t Say That Really Matters
Because Zinoman wasn’t able to find any statements from me pledging allegiance to Russia, or supporting war by Russia (or anyone for that matter), or even voicing support for Donald Trump in any way, shape, or form (because none of those statements exist), he had to resort to going after what I don’t say. …And oddly, I agree with him that what people don’t say can be important, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
As hacking and Russia’s relationship to the Trump campaign increasingly dominate headlines, Mr. Camp’s refusal to dig into the story is conspicuous. He avoids the subject on air, and while he does criticize President Trump, his considerable comic bile rarely focuses on him.
Despite all his extensive research (sarcasm), Jason Zinoman failed to read the title of my show. …Redacted Tonight. I’m hoping he knows what the word “tonight” means but maybe the “redacted” part eluded him. “Redacted” means “censored,” and my show tries very hard to focus on the news that (ironically in this conversation) is NOT being covered on the mainstream media, the stuff that is being censored. As he just admitted, bullshit about Trump and hacking claims FILL the mainstream airwaves. Some of it true, some of it not, but all of it covered intensively. I have no interest in being a mainstream media or government mouthpiece for anyone – which is why I created REDACTED Tonight. It’s also why the things I say (particularly the anti-corporate things) are not allowed on any standard American TV channel. Zinoman, on the other hand, is quite content working at a propaganda outlet like the New York Times – also more on that later – and after all, context matters.
Zinoman tepidly says “while he does criticize Trump his considerable comic bile rarely focuses on him.” Well, first of all, for anyone who watches my show regularly, you know that hardly an episode goes by in which I don’t call Trump a megalomaniacal fascist man-boy with the decision-making capacity of a gopher recently run over by a Hummer (or something similar). You can watch some examples HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, & HERE. In fact I went harsher on Trump than pretty much all of the mainstream media during the campaign season. Please point to the moments when Anderson Cooper or Brian Williams called Trump a fascist, or a psychopath, or photoshopped his head onto Hitler’s body. (I did all those things.)
And the reason I don’t spend EVEN MORE lengthy segments on him is that A) We’re the “redacted” stories, remember? The title of my show is not “Stories Everyone Has Heard 8 Billion Times On Cable News… Tonight.” And B) I don’t believe Trump is the cause of our country’s main problems. I believe he is a symptom of an incredibly corrupt corporate-ruled system. He is a horrible and rather – not bright – man, but he is not the cause of the millions of hungry and homeless and imprisoned in our country. He is not the cause of the flaws in our democracy and our media. He is just the pimple that has risen up. So either Zinoman is intentionally misunderstanding the viewpoint of my show or he’s just so desperate to push his talking points that he’s looking past it.
And I believe the New York Times is one of those directly responsible for making Trump president by – along with other mainstream outlets – giving him $5 BILLION of free coverage during the campaign season. In fact, Bernie Sanders supporters got so angry with the Times for their lack of coverage that the Times eventually issued a response. Even in that response in which they say they’ve covered Sanders plenty, they admit that in one sample month Sanders had 14 articles about him while Trump had 63 articles. If that distribution of coverage had been ANYWHERE NEAR even, we would have either Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton as president. So, Mr. Zinoman, let me know when you’d like to apologize for your outlet giving us the Trump presidency.
Step Five: Fuck It, Insult the Guy’s Looks
Mr. Camp — who looks like a Broadway musical costume designer’s idea of a counterculture comedian, with ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ hair and T-shirts bearing images of Bill Hicks or ‘Catch-22’…
The NY Times has so deeply fallen into their own propaganda hole, they’ve resorted to just insulting the looks of people they feel threatened by. I don’t know what Jason Zinoman looks like, but I’m sure it’s awesome.
Step Six: Trot Out Discredited Neocon Think-Tank-Backed Source
Liz Wahl is a former journalist for RT who quit on air, accusing the network of ‘whitewashing the actions of Putin’ in its coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ms. Wahl calls Mr. Camp a ‘stooge’. …Ms. Wahl was working at RT when “Redacted Tonight” had its premiere in 2014, and she recalled that it was envisioned in the style of “The Daily Show.”
There’s only one problem with this statement… It’s not true.
Liz Wahl was not working at RT America when Redacted Tonight premiered.
Liz Wahl quit on March 5, 2014. Redacted Tonight first aired at the end of May, 2014. So, you know, at least Wahl and Zinoman were only about three months off.
But I can’t blame Zinoman for not catching something that Wahl incorrectly described since doing so would’ve required at least one – if not TWO – Wikipedia searches. (And who has the time??) Egregious mistakes like this don’t just speak to the sloppy work of the author, they also speak to his eagerness to portray me and my show in a certain light. He seems to have thought, “If I can’t find someone who has an inside track on how Redacted Tonight is secretly sinister, I’ll pretend I do.
But besides that, Liz Wahl’s claims about how and why she left RT America have been completely debunked, including this TruthDig article entitled “How Cold War-Hungry Neocons Stage Managed RT Anchor Liz Wahl’s Resignation.” It details how the Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) was in fact tweeting about Wahl’s on-air resignation before it ever happened, and they had had a longstanding relationship with her. The authors say:
The tweets from FPI suggested a direct level of coordination between Wahl and the neoconservative think tank. …Launched by Weekly Standard founder William Kristol and two former foreign policy aides to Mitt Romney, Dan Senor and Robert Kagan (the husband of Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland), FPI grew directly out of the Project for a New American Century that led the public pressure campaign for a unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq after the Bin Laden-orchestrated 9/11 attacks.
So a completely discredited source gave Jason Zinoman the incorrect statements he was looking for. This is not the only time in recent months the New York Times has been caught flat-out lying about such things. In fact former RT host Abby Martin issued a response to the fake news put out about her which you can read here. Apparently the Times is just tripping over themselves to push this propaganda, so much so that they can’t or won’t verify simple facts.
Zinoman doesn’t let any of this stop him from quoting Wahl in the article. He’s hoping you won’t learn these things about her and her past. But you know… context matters.
Step Seven: Lie
Enough beating around the bush, it’s time to flat-out lie.
According to several people in the comedy scene, his stand-up diatribes succeeded with like-minded fans but had more trouble with crowds that didn’t share his point of view. ‘We wouldn’t book him for a weekend, let’s put it that way,’ said Cris Italia, one of the owners of the New York comedy club the Stand.
First of all, I’d love to know who these mysterious “comedy scene” people were. Waitresses? Busboys? Phanton of The Opera types lurking underneath the stage silently judging my satire? Unfortunately, we’ll never know because “the comedy scene” only speak on deep cover. (First rule of comedy scene – Don’t talk about comedy scene!)
Secondly, Zinoman claims that Cris Italia told him that the comedy club the Stand in NYC would not book me on the weekends. Cris had actually contacted me two days before the Times article came out to tell me that a reporter had reached out to him about me and that he could tell from the questions the reporter was trying to portray me in a negative light. (Read: Trying to push an agenda rather than being, you know, a journalist.) Italia said:
I told him you were liked by everyone. I also said what Dennis Miller, Janeane Garofalo, & Marc Maron were for their generation, you were for this generation.
But Zinoman did the smart thing for a propaganda machine – leave out the stuff that does not fit the false story you’re pushing. (I picture Zinoman cringing on the other end of the line as nice things are said about the unscrupulous Russian agent – Lee Camp. After jotting down the quote about Dennis Miller, he furiously rips the page out of his notebook, chews it up, and swallows it.)
Cris Italia says he was next asked whether the Stand would book me on a Saturday, and he replied that they don’t book headliners on weekends. (Most NYC clubs do what’s called a “showcase” show in which many comics get onstage over the course of the evening.) Zinoman – upon not getting the quote he wanted – must have figured he could slant this into something saying the Stand would not book me. He either didn’t understand Italia or chose to misquote him. So Zinoman is sloppy at best and a fraud at worst.
Final Step: Leave the Reader With the Same (False) Prime You Started With
The article wraps up by describing my live stand-up performance at the Cutting Room in NYC a few weeks ago. Zinoman attended the show and in the article wrongly states that I performed with two correspondents from Redacted Tonight. Only one of the openers – John F. O’Donnell – is from Redacted. But getting that fact correct would have required ANOTHER Google search. (The work never ends!) Zinoman of course fails to mention in his description that A) The 250-capacity room was nearly sold out with excited fans B) The show went great and I think everyone left having had a wonderful time C) My stand-up performances (unless done for a TV special) have no connection to RT America at all. They are my own events. But the author leaves all of that out even though… context matters.
Anyway, the article ends like this:
Once Mr. Camp finished and the crowd had filed out, I lingered for a minute on the sidewalk. And while there wasn’t any rally, I couldn’t help noticing two beefy guys speaking in Russian and laughing uproariously.
What Zinoman really REALLY doesn’t want you to know is that those “beefy Russians” were almost certainly not there for my stand-up comedy show. The Cutting Room had a show starting after mine that had nothing to do with my show. And guess what – that show was a rapper named Noize, who is described as “The most outspoken, daring and exciting Russian rapper.” That’s right, the reason there were people in line speaking Russian outside my comedy show is because they were there to see a Russian rapper that had nothing to do with me.
And don’t forget – context matters.
Either Zinoman knew about the rapper and decided not to reveal it (so he’s basically a liar), or he didn’t bother to look at the massive sign listing the performances, nor ask the Russians (who probably spoke English) why they were there (in which case he’s possibly the worst “journalist” to walk the earth). It’s tough to say which one of those two things is worse.
But describing those laughing Russians serves a purpose greater than an interesting tidbit. Zinoman sat through an entire 90-minute stand-up comedy show in which I covered everything from how our leaders force us into endless war, to how we can feed every human on the planet, to how we are sold an infinite parade of lies, to how my comedy doesn’t go over well at children’s birthday parties. He saw me cover all those important issues. He saw an audience of over 200 people loving it and coming up to meet me afterwards. He saw a guy who has fought hard for 20 years to just do stand-up comedy that matters – that enlightens and informs and entertains. He saw it all. But none of THAT fit with the propaganda he needed to push. In fact, it went against the storyline he was trying to create.
So instead he leaves the reader with the idea that either A) My show is meant for burly Russians (according to online analytics roughly 80% or 90% of my viewers are Americans) or B) My show is being watched over by burly Russians to make sure I don’t say anything “out of line.” Both of those are fake news. The reality is that burly Russians like a rapper named Noize.
I want to conclude with a little bit of context about the New York Times, and how they’ve become such a propaganda outlet that they would even hire journalists who pump out loads of fake news like this article on me.
Chris Hedges worked for 15 years as a foreign correspondent at the Times and won a Pulitzer for his work. He now hosts the show “On Contact” at RT America. He once said of his former employer,
…many at the paper have no real moral compass. They know the rules imposed by the paper’s stylebook. They know what constitutes a ‘balanced’ story. They know what the institution demands. They work hard. They have ingested the byzantine quirks and traditions of the paper. But they cannot finally make independent moral choices. The entire paper — I speak as someone who was there at the time — enthusiastically served as a propaganda machine for the impending invasion of Iraq.
Hedges went on to say,
[The senior editors] do not question the utopian faith in globalization. They support preemptive war, at least before it goes horribly wrong. And they accept unfettered capitalism, despite what it has done to the nation, as a kind of natural law.
The Times was a strong cheerleader for the War in Iraq. (Don’t worry though – they still have reporters out there looking for the weapons of mass destruction. …Any day now.) When Hedges came out against the Iraq War, the paper reprimanded him for “public remarks that could undermine public trust in the paper’s impartiality.” …So basically they said, “Either stand behind this flawed, illegal invasion of Iraq or else you’re not welcome at the Times.” Hedges left the paper soon after.
Want some more evidence of exactly how the New York Times operates? Here’s world renowned political philosopher Noam Chomsky going through a single issue of the Times in 2015 explaining how it is pure propaganda.
Best-selling journalist Greg Palast (BBC, Rolling Stone) wrote to me after he saw the article. Here’s his unsolicited opinion –
The hatchet job on Lee Camp by the NY Times is the pathetic new Red-baiting 2.0. The Times man claimed Lee was afraid to attack Trump because that would displease the owners of RT. Really? What in Lee’s statement, ‘Fuck Trump,’ sounds like an endorsement?
So the next time you’re reading so-called journalism in the New York Times, remember… context matters.
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
Thanks for posting that.
I would have probably never read it, and it is important, not as confirmation bias but as a discipline of analysis using deconstruction to reduce a story down to its reality components to test for simple truth. The process perfects how the mind looks at information. If this were part of US school curriculum, this nation would look very different than it does. People would have the ability to make informed decisions.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
There certainly is a lot of disdain for citizens who want
an end to the circus and want real people who understand about transparency, straight-forwardness, empathy and the will of the people to represent us. The Kochs and their Republicans also assume that their voters are stupid and can be easily fooled by an echo chamber of lies. Mainstream media must be turned off if they won't inform people.
Beware the bullshit factories.
The founding fathers
had an idea that should have worked. Democracy - if participated in by an educated, informed electorate - should produce essentially a meritocracy. A +B = C. And they were - are - right. The problem is that in the later half of the 20th century the media and education became mutually and universally corrupt. In the founders time anyone who could afford a printing press had the same influence as any other. Today five groups of wealthy men have locked everyone else out of the debate, and those five speak with one voice. And as for education, it has become so connected with employment that it does nothing other than vocation. A college graduate of today knows everything about (insert last decade's technical skill here) but less than nothing about how to be a capable citizen.
It was not the separation of powers that guarded against tyranny , that was only a stop gap until the next election, where an informed, educated electorate would remove the tyrant(s). That no longer works. So what do our esteemed elites suggest - why leave it all to the tyrants of course!
On to Biden since 1973
This is the whole point of what they do
to dis-inform and keep on doing that in every even minor facet of our lives. Buy this, you'll look younger! Get that car, just think of the looks you'll get in that! And elect this person, this time it really will be different! America is always good, don't you ever forget that! They hate us for our freedoms! Just be happy and yes, shop til ya drop!
They are toxic now. They no longer even try to hide their goal either. It's as if they planned it all along....s/
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
That's one of the basic tenets of the Revolution,
to make things less complicated. Without the Federal Reserve System, the private health care system, the military industrial complex, imperialism, the oligarchy's media monopoly, war, professional lobbyists and think tanks, and by greatly rolling back federal government overreach into state affairs, that should be a breeze.
Well, there is an upside to that.
In their quest to exploit the nation's remaining bounty through deregulation and the elimination of national oversight, they are indeed
But this leads directly to a passionate rise in regional sovereignty — essentially the break-up of the United States into a loose union of six to nine independent and friendly nation-states. Friendly, because they are interdependent and extended family lives in all of them, so tourism and trade abounds and their economies boost one another.
This is my personal best hope for the United States and the world.
Plus, it almost guarantees the end of wars of aggression against the world. They won't be able to afford it. They will instead become competing utopias (to attract industry). Incubators of good ideas (or bad) for all to see and experience.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Gonna have to be done, not just here
but in China and Russia, India, wherever there are large countries dominated by the rich.
Reverse manifest destiny.
Yes, precisely.
Glad we are of a mind on that. It is inevitable, too, because large states are sociopathic. They will not and cannot protect all the people from what is coming. They will be selecting those who must die to maintain their precious status quo. Shades of Katrina.
I think the people will scramble to form smaller sovereign states, where representation is possible. (But Empire is not.) As long as trade remains robust, therein lies the potential for a long global peace.
[It also will finally end the longest running civil war in the known universe. It's been so kitsch and tiresome.]
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
I think there would need to be some structure
To mediate disagreements between all the different states. Otherwise the larger and more geographically lucky states start to dominate:
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CR2rxRMcTE]
Beware the bullshit factories.
Each region-state would have unique strengths
Hi :
The idea was states would align to form sovereign regions, spurred on by the stresses of climate change and lack of representation. The regional breakup has long been proposed to give individuals more hands-on government and more concentrated clout. For example, Regional sovereignty could block the practice of socializing corporate losses — forcing the people to bail them out without specific consent. Larger regions can withhold their consent to the sociopathic tyranny that is pushed down by the oligarchs and their finance and media monopolies. Regions formed by states with shared interests could better check the abuses of the oligarchs and their paid-for politicians — returning power to the people. The assets and resources of the sovereign regions would be owned, controlled, and protected by the local population.
Examples of proposed regional sovereign states:
ECONOMIC REGIONS:
WATER RESOURCE ZONES:
ENVIRONMENTAL REGIONS:
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
Thanks for the link...
But it seems a little beyond "Fair Use". Thanks for citing NC, but the idea is to quote a "few" paragraphs and link to the source. NC needs eyeballs,too!
Blessed be the occasional rule breakers
For they breathe life and meaning into the laws. If there are either to be had.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
It's not as if America's well-groomed, professional class
of decision-makers have been doing such a bang-up job of late. They've been good at patting one another on the back, I'll give them that.
native
It's funny
how the desires of the teaming masses is wisdom...when it comes to capitalism, but not with democracy.
Envisioning Two Fussy Powdered Fops...
...Writing as they hold their perfumed hankies to their noses and whine about the nerve of the unwashed ones wishing to walk the same streets as they (rather than slinking down the more appropriate trash littered back alleys) and preposterously proposing to know anything at all about business best left to Gentlemen. Sniff, sniff!
We, the American underclass, have proven ourselves
unworthy. We were presented with two choices: a joke choice, Trump and the "real" choice, Hillary. Yet somehow Trump won. Who could have imagined that the people would choose the joke candidate?
What TPTB failed to see was that to the American underclass, both candidates were a cruel joke. Michael Moore, while supporting Hillary, observed that Trump was a Molotov cocktail lobbed at the establishment. Apparently he was not listening to himself when he spoke or he would have realized how removed the ruling elite have become from the people they purport to represent, a guarantee that their ploy of the only "rational" choice would fail.
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
When I watched that clip of Michael Moore
and the Big Fuck You, I started to doubt even the Evil Queen's ability to rig that election. He was chillingly correct.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
And yet the surprise when Hillary lost. Weird, no?
"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"
Robert Merry disagrees...
I caught this on Naked Capitalism the other day. They have started linking to The American Conservative, because they are not crazy. Robert Merry is the editor; he ran Congressional Quarterly for a long time back in the day, and (full disclosure) my wife worked for CQ and Bob Merry back in the day. CQ was known for good and fair journalism--my wife was in another division, but she like working there under Bob Merry.
Bob disagrees with our "friends" at Brookings: He notes that "the elites" ARE "the problem". Not all "conservatives" are idiots. We pretend that at our peril. Here's the link:Removing Trump won't solve America's Crisis
Well, they are right. Aren't they?
The first thing I thought of after reading this sentence was that we can't be allowed to participate in the decision making of our government because we don't understand how the lobbying system works.
You covered this statement by saying that we have a system that supports the interests of a very few at the expense of the many. You then go on to list everything that comes from the lobbyists and special interests groups.
The second thing that I thought was that they are worried about is the energy of the grassroots efforts of trying to get people elected to government who will start representing us instead of their lobbyist's masters.
People are waking up and seeing how their money is being taken from them and going to the rich and have decided that enough is enough. They are seeing income inequality is rising and while the rich keep getting richer, they are working hard, longer and falling further behind.
Mark from Queens wrote about this in today's open thread, but he came at this by how TPTB are nickel and diming us by using the police to write tickets for every minor infraction.
Well done, Stephen Brilliant essay!
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Plato is where your education starts, not where it ends.
Didn't these clowns even take 1B.
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
I'm reminded of Dixie Lee Ray.
The former head of the Atomic Energy Commission said, while Governor of Washington, that the people did not understand nuclear energy well enough to be making decisions about nuclear power plants. She was responding to the many protests against Hanford and WPPS nuclear construction sites.
I wanted to smash the TV. "YOU are responsible for education! If people aren't informed enough it is YOUR job to provide them with the education they need to participate in our democracy!"
As it turns out, the people protesting were correct and Dixie Lee Ray was wrong. The problems those power plants have had not only endanger health but have cost gazillions more than budgeted.