It's difficult to take seriously an essay that starts off quoting the execrable, comical and toweringly unserious Andrew Ross Sorkin (3 names????) of the equally unserious and comical NY Times and CNBC. And, yes, we do remember the CNBC dolts fawning over the Fried Bankman.
A serious nation? A serious nation would not have elected a cognitively impaired Joe Biden who was never more than a mediocre and corrupt Senator for decades. And who is even more of a joke as president, with an unserious press asking him moronic questions as he lurches from lie to lie, crisis to crisis. With a cabinet of jokers and buffoons and an admiral in a dress. Don't want a senate masquerading as a rest home with depends-wearing human turnips? Try term limits. And John Fetterman???? Would a serious nation have elected a Shrek lookalike who makes Caligula's horse seem like an ideal Senator in comparison. When a self-righteous Democrat fulminates about the regrettable Mr. Trump, simply point out that he was judged better than the screeching harridan they wanted to crown and was removed in favor of a senile imbecile who's in the pocket of our enemies.
Joe Biden wasn't elected. I don't think Fetterman was either.
What serious nation would be anything but outraged at the patent and open election frauds being committed? As many have commented, even honest Democrats should be outraged.
I think we have to be careful about the election fraud thing. Clearly the dark money, the media in the tank for Democrats, the tech/FBI censoring operation and election law violations are deeply troubling. As to outright fraud, although there is some evidence, we don't have any concrete proof that the election was "stolen." The over-reach, including the unproven claims by Rudy and Sydney Powell made us look foolish. Not to mention the mad caper by Eastman.
It may be as simple as defining what "fraud" actually is in the context of an election. We face a definitional challenge, as with many things in our cultural analysis, whereby we equate "fraud" with "illegal." The definition of fraud begins with "wrongful OR criminal..." We say there can't have been fraud because "no one was convicted," or "the lawsuits were thrown out." But that only means the specific courts in question did not find criminal behavior, clearly attributable to an individual, and punishable within the legal means available to them. It does NOT mean they did not find fraud.
There has been fraud in every election ever ("wrongful" behavior if we judged by the purest of moral standards - a host of The View admitted on air to filling out her son's ballot for him - this is "wrongful" by the specific letter of the definition - but as long as the child doesn't press charges, it isn't "criminal" in nature). And therein lies the issue. Every politician knows this difference. They know that ballot stuffing and ballot harvesting are "wrongful," but they also know that in many states they aren't illegal, and therefore who cares. Almost everything about modern day politics is "wrongful," insider trading anyone?
My long, meandering point, I suppose, is that the issue with calling our elections fraudulent isn't that that statement is inaccurate, watch the Kari Lake trial and it is impossible to believe there was no "wrongdoing," it's that, like many things, we are a dumb people and can't separate the wrongdoing (which we should all be very offended by) from the "illegal," which we should look to change, but won't, because, by definition, the people in power know these legal loopholes benefit them.
You know why we'll never have a flat consumption tax in this country? Because it would actually tax the rich - and those in power would never allow that...
Your post wasn't meandering, at all. It was insightful. And spot on. Remember that John Adams remarked that our Constitution was only fit for a moral people. We need to demand that of our elected leaders. Case in point - Santos from Long Island. No Republican should be defending him; certainly not with the argument that Democrats lie, too. He needs to go. Why? Because if you live in his district, he represents you. Is this who you want representing you? Your answer will literally define the fate of our nation.
Since this Santos debacle began, I've wondered WTF vetted this guy? Did anyone check his resume? Did anyone see if he was who he said he was? Didn't anyone make sure?
My other questions: Did the people changed with the task of vetting him lose their jobs, and if not, why not?
Why should any of us be surprised? Politics has always been this way.
At least with term limits, we will rotate the corrupt every few years and we will no longer be governed by the living dead (Think Nancy Pelosi and Diana Feinstein).
Santos is the perfect guy for these days. Together with the “election fraud” obsessions on the right, he’s the counterweight to the left’s woke madness, showing how deep and generalized the rot is in the mind of Americans. It would be so convenient to just blame one side, instead of realizing it’s a way of thinking, a new American “culture”.
Who would be in charge of screening or vetting him? The government? Please consider the implications of that. The Republican party? They don't "vet" candidates. Anyone can run who pays the filing fee and meets the residency requirement (and certain other requirements for some positions, age for example). This is on the citizens of Santos' district. Someone should have opposed him in the primary, dug into his background and brought his indiscretions to light. Personally I think that is true of Biden as well. Of course he has obstructed that at every point along with his protection details in the DOJ and press.
"the people charged with vetting him"??? WTF do you think that is? Guess what, its the voters. There is no office of candidate integrity and honesty. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are proof of that truth.
"We say there can't have been fraud because 'no one was convicted,' or 'the lawsuits were thrown out.' But that only means the specific courts in question did not find criminal behavior..."
Seems important to recognize that in the context of 2020 election lawsuits, the evidence wasn't even heard in the vast majority of them. Nearly all were dismissed at the outset on procedural grounds, prior to any evidence being presented. The judicial doctrines of "standing" and "laches" were used by court after court to toss the hot potato before it could burn.
Completely agree, and you're very right, that is important context. There should be a civil court context against which to take a woeful negligence case to court whereby election malpractice had a direct impact on the lives of those afflicted, but the only judges who'd be willing to hear that case exist in states that have practical election laws. It really is the vicious cycle of an empire in decline - only the empire is individual states. I think we are very close to election law discrepancies being the straw that actually breaks the camels back as relates to secession ... Texas is very close to having the economic freedom to actually push this, should they chose too, especially if they can get the other gulf states to move in lock step. a VERY interesting negotiation would follow regarding legal statues on election if the gulf states threatened to remove major ports from the national economy over "taxation without representation" clauses ...
that the "evidence" was going to be presented by the same lunatics that could not come up with a coherent, legitimate legal framework is utterly meaningless.
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
There were many different claims brought by different people under different laws in many different jurisdictions. It sounds like you're lumping them all together under Sydney Powell & Co. I get your disdain for the so-called "Kraken" cases, but though they monopolized the media sphere, they weren't the only or most compelling claims.
And I don't mean to be dense, but I'm not sure what point you're making with the Burris piece...
I watched parts of the Kari Lake trial and it was obvious there was organized fraud in Miracopa County. This issue really has to be addressed or you are going to have serious civil unrest.
I live here. There was no organized fraud, and there is going to be no civil unrest over Lake's loss, serious or otherwise. Lake's loss was self-inflicted. She forgot that you can be Nutbar McCrazy in the GOP primary and win, but you have to shift to reasonable in the general. She didn't, and too many voters assumed she would govern as she campaigned: shrill, caustic, and waging endless culture wars instead of, for example, working on boring but crucial water issues. We dumped her, no fraud, just votes.
A few sociological and biological elements of the "election denier" subculture:
1. the Trump base was Celtic (and Border Reiver) appalachians, a clannish gene pool and social form based on honor systems and fealty oaths that originated as a historically marginalized population that has been holding grudges for at least 500 years, most recently neoconfederates that have been festering in resentment since the Civil War.
2. because that base is a cultural minority that will never be able to dominate US politics, there is a massive level of cognitive dissonance, which creates a need for emotive narratives that are a balm to the wounded "pagan" psyche.
Election denialism is the main form of balm at the moment.
It is not RATIONAL or OBJECTIVE because cold, systematic logic and fact-based arguments are not capable of being emotional balms (on the contrary).
The purpose of election denialism is to focus the outrage that arises from the political impotence of the celtic-appalachian and other rural-working-class-populist gene pools.
None of that would be of much importance except that the mainstream culture is disintegrating due to technology disruption, like the Roman empire collapsing, so the "barbarians" sense an opportunity to crash the gates of the weakened empire.
In other words, the increasing ILLIBERALISM, dysfunction and irrationalism of the "establishment" and the "woke left" is a magnet pulling the "barbarians" toward the gates.
I agree with your point about the terminology. The problem at this point in time is that relief from a "fraudulent" election requires proof of criminal wrongdoing. Therefore, I think to continue to decry election "fraud" empowers the gullible and easily led followers of those who really did IMO engage in immoral conduct during the election. Unfortunately those followers vote.
We empowered a Special Prosecutor to investigate charges that the FBI knew at the OUTSET were fraudulent, for the simple reason that the Left was screaming and Trump--who authorized this witch hunt in the naive hope that his patent innocence would mean exoneration and silence--thought it expedient.
Where have any of these charges been truly examined anywhere? In Arizona, where they did the only real audit, much information was withheld from the investigators and they STILL found 200,000 ballots lacking chain of custody. Literally every one of those could have been fraudulent, and most of them likely were. They were added after the cutoff.
No one questioning the elections in 2020 or 2022 needs to back off, nor should they, for the OBVIOUS reason that IF CHEATING IS HAPPENING AND IT CONTINUES THEN WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A ONE PARTY SYSTEM.
It's that simple. If your opponent is cheating, then reworking your message won't help. Appealing to new voters won't help. Nothing makes any difference, because it is no longer a question of asking voters what they want. A small elite determines who the winners are, and those winners have to be corrupt to be invited to the party.
I think that the election was stolen as a result of overwhelming fraud. But there are very valid reasons for backing off. It is not only a waste of time, it is counterproductive. Nothing can be done about the 2020 election. All legal remedies were exhausted prior to 1/6/21.
I have no issue with ordinary citizens continuing to discuss the issue but GOP candidates should avoid it like the plague as it makes it less likely that they will be elected.
Starting at the end of your comment I agree about the small group (apparently).controlling things. Prior to the drop of the Twitter Files I would have questioned my own sanity about this but no more. I absolutely trust my, and your, instincts. I disagree that they are elite however. They are far from it. They are just power hungry souls in a world where gamesmanship is rewarded. That is what needs to change and it can only be done by passing legislation. Or the point of a gun but I do not advocate that. But on the legislative front I am not a proponent of federal control of elections. I think federal assumption of much of daily existence is the problem not the solution.
I witnessed first hand the mindset of the newest voters in my county and it is not pretty. They were on a mission ignited by Beto O'Rourke and funded by George Soros. And maybe SBF. There will be 2 more years of them in 2024. They elected a 19 year old lawn boy to be the District Clerk of a county with a rapidly growing population and all of the growing pains associated therewith. All a result of Vote Blue No Matter Who. But it WAS a legitimate election.
And I disagree that screaming "fraud" and "cheating" is a valid strategy. The opposition has trained its followers (followers as in cult-like which is my observation) in the use of buzzwords. Their followers are gullible. Using those buzzwords just makes it easier for the opposition. Read comments on this thread and you will see example of what I am talking about. They have their own buzzwords too. The resident of the Oval Office is well-versed in them but we should not blindly react thereto but rather understand the fallacy(ies) behind those buzzwords and be prepared to refute their use. The fact is that while I agree with you that there were a LOT of irregularities in the 2020 election, like the origin of covid, we will likely never know the truth because the apparatus is compromised. This true in many states (elections, even national ones, are controlled at the state level) but particularly so in Arizon where the sitting Secretary of State, charged with overseeing elections, ran for Governor.
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
'IF CHEATING IS HAPPENING AND IT CONTINUES THEN WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A ONE PARTY SYSTEM.'
Not sure, Barry. From where I sit I see the Republican Party in control (I use the word loosely) of the House of Reps. Someone had to have voted them in..
I'm talking trucks full of ballots driving in after the cutoff, all of them for Joe Biden, and observers being forced to watch either from a distance, or behind a curtain.
It's reasonable to believe the election was stolen, but this is an opinion. Trump was filling stadiums, and Joe barely campaigned, and had trouble reading his teleprompter in front of the dozens of people he could attract when he did.
But it is CATEGORICALLY UNDENIABLE that all of the hundreds of major problems should have been investigated, that signed statements should have been allowed into evidence by nearly every court to which they were brought in a dozen or more States, and that the integrity of our elections should have been taken seriously by BOTH parties.
In my view, to say otherwise is to admit intellectual incompetence. There is ample reason to mistrust our System, and the only rational conclusion to be drawn from that is that we need to reestablish the basics in order to reestablish trust; and if we fail to do that, both political violence and tyranny become both likely, and the end result of stupidity.
I do not disagree with you. But what we need is proof. Proof so overwhelming and public that it cannot be denied. I have mused here on other occasions about what America would do if such proof were provided? Would they yawn and go back to mindless distractions. Or would they take vengeance on the malefactors? Well, what would you do if someone tried to steal your liberty?
What would be the process for delivering proof without an investigation? Without doing any research, I'm going to guess that most crimes that are not investigated go unsolved.
Advocacy groups have been doing "investigations" for decades, They file FOIAs and that kind of thing. Look for whistleblowers. Etc.
The problem is that toxic partisan interest groups tend to infiltrate or buy out such advocacy groups, so finding credible, non-partisan sources is challenging.
You seem to be extremely ignorant and uninformed, presumably because you are a SHITPOSTING TROLL that is only interested in toxic bullshit.
I love the "who is the best basketball player of all time" debate. I'll accept two answers, Michael Jordan or Bill Russel. When people ask why my answer isn't "well, did you see how Michael flew through the air?" Or "well, Jordan was a better defender than Lebron on a possession by possession basis and his clutch time stats were better." I say "My success criteria is a simple formula - you get 1 point for a playoff win, 5 points for a playoff series win, 10 points for winning your conference and 100 for winning a championship. If you were the underdog in the series and won you multiply by 2. if you were the favorite and lost, you get deducted half the available points." In my mind, the best player ever wins when he has the better team and even wins sometimes when he doesn't. By my scoring system it's Michael Jordan or Bill Russel depending on how you adjust for differences in game count per playoffs and number of series to win a championship. Tim Duncan is next BTW. Lebron is something like 8th, badly hampered by losing multiple championships as the prohibitive betting favorite.
Why does this matter? Well, it's to illustrate we all have very different "burdens of proof" for all sorts of things in life, and "election fraud" is one of them. Today, we all use the old definition of p*rn... "I know it when I see it" when it comes to election fraud, and that's on purpose, to keep us endlessly debating and so that you can call the people who's threshold is they want an audit trail "conspiracy theorists" for claiming they want for elections what the government mandates for the financials of a four person local landscaping company.
I would make a strong argument that north of 80% of this country, if asked to define fraud, and then go investigate whether that threshold has been met, would find it has. But no one is asking them to set a threshold (on purpose), and everyone else is waiting for someone else to provide them the evidence and the answer (a la the column above - multiple generations in a row who expect to be given the answer to the test, then regurgitate it when presented with the test).
That said, I wake up hopeful because I believe we finally have the societal recourse to bring this to the forefront. If you now ignore what's happening on Twitter and quote CNN, people are talking about you behind your back. And soon will be calling you dumb to your face. And that means, very soon, you will wake up and have the answer to the test presented directly to you and burying your head in the sand will no longer be cool, and then we may actually get the structural reform we have in FL all across the country and then we'll start to see real and sustainable change.
Or I'm just naïve, but at least naïve and hopeful, which feels better than the alternative
Sure, Pierce, whatever you say. Because you know everything Funny but as independent as you claim to be, you swallow the swill dished out by corporate media and the intel state as if it were gospel. Not impressed but keep talking and removing all doubt.
After the cutoff is dubious and when the cutoff depends on the laws of each state. Most likely those trucks contained "harvested" ballots. Those were the source of the video of counting being halted to allow more votes. This was legal in many states. This was what the Zuckerburg $402 million procured.
This is my issue. Ballot harvesting is legal and pretty much unregulated so you can't really argue fraud. Either the other side starts doing it or you pass legislation. I find it odd that after 2020 Republican legislators did not pass any laws in the various states where this happens to outlaw it. So the "uni-party" thing might be real.
Yes. And that's why elections should be conducted using methods so transparent that the losers are convinced that they lost. Even if that means relatively primative counting methods.
Agreed. Imagine if all of these patent criminal frauds had benefited Republicans. Do you think it would be other than 24/7 news? They got four years out of Russia, which THEY INVENTED. What do you think they would do with something real? A lot.
Like some other absolutely unsufferable idiots on Bari and Matt's columns & guest columns, e.pierce is a one-trick pony without any discernable intelligence--- "paranoid conspiratard narrative" is all he's got. This is all any of them have.
Why? If I thought you were sincere I could half a dozen lines of evidence, with up to hundreds of examples of each.
And given that no serious investigations happened, by what process of logic can you conclude that evidence that was never examined doesn’t exist?
And were you also consistent enough to point out that the Russian collusion stories—which WERE investigated—proved nothing but that we have a highly politicized criminal justice system?
Agree completely. And maybe that's why every single Democrat member of the House voted for the radical Hakeem Jeffries who opposes voter IDs and actually showing up on election day. Because fair elections are garlic to the vampire Democrats. Who have been engaging in voter fraud successfully since the days of Tammany Hall.
The paranoid conspiratards will never be convinced by actual facts and evidence, or rational, systematic thinking. They are driven by insane, subjective, emotive narratives.
They are just mirror images of the ILLIBERAL lunatics on the "left".
The fraudsters are clever, and time is on their side. Log the votes and wait for the clock to run out on inauguration day. Proof is hard to get especially when there is obstruction by the beneficiaries of the fraud.
The temptation to putting forth a seemingly calm, reasoned - and reasonable - point of view is overwhelming. There is nothing like the attraction of being the "adult in the room" as they say these days. Unfortunately there are times when splitting the baby, saying, "Well, it's really a little of both," or there "Is some evidence, but we don't have concrete proof" just doesn't apply. Like most of the time, actually....
If you really, truly believe there was no outright fraud in the 2020 presidential election, all I can tell you is to do your homework. There is enough evidence - easily available evidence - to fill a railroad car. Testimony, affidavits sworn under penalty of perjury, demonstrations of real-time Internet-connected voting machine hacking and vote changing, offers to scan ballots for the broken fibers that would indicate whether they had been folded in order to mail them in, offers to scan and compare (by the machine itself) whether individual marks on ballots were real or just photocopies.
No, the only way to be innocent of what happened in the 2020 election is to be Willfully Ignorant - to actively avoid mountains of evidence - not evidence, actually, proof - that in a lawful regime would not only render that election null and void, but land hundreds, maybe thousands of people in prison.
Yes, all after the fact and impossible to get done before inauguration day. After that, the cry is that election deniers are a threat to democracy. It is twisted and sick, but this is what the system allows. We need a big change in how elections are conducted - voting, counting, verifying and accepting results - in short, election integrity.
My view has long been that if we subject corporations to yearly audits, why not every election? Do a spot check of 10% of the ballots, and if problems are found, a full audit. At this point, nothing less will pacify most of us; along with, of course, a FULL audit of both 2020 and 2022 in the States with obvious problems.
Sure. Of course, humanity has been holding elections for a Very Long Time, as A.A Milne might say. We know what it takes to ensure election integrity, in which case we might not need audits.
In the words of Dr. Ben Carson, brain surgeon - this ain't brain surgery. To wit: One day voting, with absentee ballots available only with a Very Good Reason, and requested ahead of time. Voter ID. No voting computers - paper ballots only. All results to be in by 11:00 the same day, or they will not be counted; simply hire enough workers FOR ONE DAY to get the job done. Votes counted under the watchful eyes of observers from all involved political parties. Absolute chain-of-custody control. The only people who could possibly want to weaken voting integrity are those who intend to cheat.
"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." FDR. Yes, it has been a Democratic Party tactic THAT LONG at least!
Why stuff the ballot when you can scare the voter?
I sincerely believe if 100 million mail in ballots were NOT sent out, we might have had a different result. That was unprecedented in our election history. The sudden appearance of hundreds of thousands of “mail in ballots” found in the middle of the night is very suggestive of some serious problems.
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Your narrative started off crazy and keeps getting worse.
You have little or no credibility because you don't even come close to the necessary standard of rational, systematic, objective, impartial and fact-based thinking.
You are lost in a toxic echo chamber with a dysfunctional groupthink narrative and poor evidence, at best.
Judges don't have time to endlessly listen to crazy people during an election cycle.
With respect I think there is overwhelming evidence of fraud. Firstly, the voting laws were illegally changed in GA and PA to enable mail- in voting (as I am sure you know election laws can only be changed by State Legislatures). Secondly, election laws were not followed in Wisconsin (mail-in ballots were sent to every voter when the law stated they could only be sent to those who requested them). Thirdly, the counting of ballots was not only not bipartisan - some Republicans were deliberately excluded in places like PA, at least (in Ontario a scrutineer from each party sits around the counting table and a ballot is not counted unless everyone agrees it is valid). Fourthly the counting was suspended in GA and MI and when it started again hours later the votes for Biden were mathematically impossible. Finally, mail-in votes were not properly vetted and no one knows how many illegal mail-in votes were counted. I have left out the issue of machine fraud and failure.
As a lawyer I know that proving fraud is a very difficult and time consuming process. It can’t be done in weeks or months. Joshua Philip at The Epoch Times had a very convincing summary not long after the election.
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Thats the problem. No honest person can demy that no meaningful investigation of hundreds of sworn eyewitness affadavits and statistically impossible results (and much rlse) ever happened.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
Your retarded paranoia is an instant disqualification.
Your groupthink and gaslighting is an instant qualification.
Your self-referential bullshit is an instant disqualification.
I don't give a shit what you think about who "belongs" anywhere.
Weiss and her team obviously don't give a shit about curating the comments section and getting rid of B0TZ, TR0LLZ and lunatics like you, which would be required to have SERIOUS discussions.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Uncle Versey Ledbetter, on his way from the hog pen to the barn, happened by the homestead window one day, only to find three of Aunt Pet's fine apple pies cooling in the fresh air. He knew that they were meant for the ladies' club meeting, but her pies were so good that he just HAD to have a piece.
So he took out his pocket knife, and after carefully wiping the blade on his pants, cut himself a slice and bit in.
Unfortunately, just out of the oven, they were pure liquid fire. HOCCCCKKKK! he said, and spit that piece of pie right through the window, into the middle of about five of McComb, Mississippi's finest, best-dressed women, who were, of course, horrified.
Uncle Versey poked his head in the window, look around at them, and said, "You know, many a durn fool would've swallered that!
Many a durn fool replies to trolls, giving them the attention they can't get living in their mothers' basements. I, on the other hand, never swaller that. (Excuse me while I wipe the hog droppings off my blade.)
POOPER and the election denier psychos are far from being regular trolls, they are part of an active b0t scheme to destroy the country so that assholes like Alex Jones can make another $billion.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to you preferred charity.)
Your comment is very derogatory to people who happen to believe that we have a serious election problem. Won't it be ironic if it all comes out someday? Because right now we have learned about how the government has been censoring information on social media sites such as Twitter. God knows what's been going on behind the scenes.
What is "serious" is the deeper loss of social trust, and inability of people to adapt to disruption by becoming anti-fragile to such disruption.
If you want to be "serious" about election problems, accept the fact that the narrative is toxic and encourages paranoid conspiratards to go deep into insane echo chambers.
Also accept that the narrative is going to be exploited for profit by vermin like Alex Jones and other conspiracy troll farm operators, "entryists", etc.
Rephrased:
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Is this a real way that real people think? If a guy with blue eyes committed a crime this one time than all people with blue eyes are forever guilty of that crime? I think I know the answer, which is terrifying. It goes something like - religious extremists, a la the modern left, actually do think this way. As the church of the left requires 100% fealty to its ever evolving list of commandments, and one of those commandments is that if you questioned election integrity at any point prior to November of 2019, you are on the "right side of history," but if you questioned it at any point post November of 2019 then you are, obviously, a terrorist.
These types of thought crimes are my favorite reminder of the spherical nature of the real political spectrum. Anarchy on top, complete and total tyranny on the bottom. Go far enough left or right and you end up at the exact same spot - the left gets there through "identity" and the right through "religion." Either way, I tell you EXACTLY what you must both think and be at all times and your job is to regurgitate any and every time you are called upon to do so.
Also - you should be very worried, because I bet that one time you thought something that this guy also thought - sky is blue, water is wet, food is good, who knows - and all of those thought crimes mean you're now just as guilty of terrorism as he is, and apparently as everyone who's ever questioned why we keep changing election practices to make it as easy to cheat as possible.
I’ve concluded that political extremism amounts to emotional regression; or rather emotional underdevelopment manifesting as public childishness, which includes a complete lack of self awareness, an jnability to think rationally, temper tandrums, an obsession with getting your way, and an inability to listen to or process the emotions of others.
Right next to this comment is a textbook example. There is no mind there to debate. In an adult, this literally is a clinical psychosis. A mild one, to be sure, but quite real.
You are resorting to some absurdly contorted bullshit, gaslighting and deflections.
Your delusions sound insane.
Your rhetorical pattern is toxic.
And that is the point:
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
It's not "my" problem. The guy is clearly a psycho who was not elected and has now been caught and charged. He doesn't enter into the local or national "election equation" at all. There are a lot of right and left 'wingnuts' in the political universe, eh? The dilemma is to identify the 'crazies' and not follow or become one of them.
The election denier narrative has a large element of psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers.
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
THANK YOU for proving my point: you are psychotic and lost deep within a hyper toxic echo chamber of paranoid conspiratardism and tribalistic partisanism.
You are incapable of self-examination or self-correction.
You ARE THE PROBLEM, not the solution.
Nothing you do will correct the bullshit on the left, on the contrary.
(unless your intention is to push the country toward civil war, secession, or something like that.)
Oh stop. Respectfully please. This isn't adding meaning to the conversation. You have diverted the crux of the article to insert your political agenda.
Agreed! My goodness, I came to the comments to read thoughtful insight about the millennial generation, who i'm only slightly ahead of in age, and instead I hit a scroll hole about election malfeasance. Who has ADD here?
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
It’s so ironic to bring out again the Big Steal in comments to an article about “it’s time to grow up”… you should remember that “no election is fair unless I or my preferred candidate wins” was already copyrighted by Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton.
Surely facts are relevant? I think they are. There is nothing childish about pointing out hundreds of MAJOR problems, none of which received ANY hearing in ANY court of law whatever. There is nothing childish about asking that the law be followed.
Neither Stacey Abrams or Hillary ever had any facts on their side, did they? Hillary in fact MADE UP her main objection, as we now know.
Faith in the System writ large depends on faith in the people who comprise it, and I have zero faith in most of our institutions, and with good reason I could spend hours writing about, as you should know, if you have exhibited any curiosity on this topic at all.
If your “facts” received no hearing in courts, might it be because no court takes seriously accusations without proof? Oh, but sure, it’s a giant conspiracy, Republican officials overseeing the elections are in, Bill Barr is in, Trump-appointed judges are in. Textbook loony conspiracy theory, just what America can’t get enough of (have you ever heard of “voter suppression” on the other side?).
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
Simple question: given that on my side I have hundreds of sworn eyewitness testimony, statistically impossible results (like more votes than voters), and patent massive violations (like the 200,000 ballots in Arizona lacking chain of custody in an election decided by 12,000 votes), in what respect does the quantity of EVIDENCE not vastly EXCEED that used to appoint Robert Mueller as Special Counsel?
As we ALL now know, the FBI knew at the OUTSET there was no collusion. They knew Trump did nothing wrong. Yet he spent two years disrupting Trumps life and Presidency.
Surely we are entitled to the same? You had NO evidence. We have a LOT of evidence.
I view the situation as very simple.
And you don’t REALLY believe in Democracy, do you? Or more precisely accountable elected representatives who are kept honest by honest elections? You just want your side to WIN. Nothing more. You don’t value even your own freedom, because it scared you, like a little child.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
the fact is that paranoid conspiratard narratives are going viral due to deeper forms of social dis-integration (loss of social trust) that neither the (mainstream/establishment) "left" or "right" understand how to solve.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
Would that be the most recent "epidemic" that was of a piece with two previous flu outbreaks in the 1950s and 1960s, which saw no election changes or economic crises? Or the virus we were told could not possibly have been the result of genetic engineering (while evading the matter of gain of function)? Or about which Fauci swore China was being fully "transparent?"
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
You didn't answer the question. Have election emergencies in the past caused changes to election procedures?
Also:
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Pierce, you've been shrieking about this "terrorist attack" all day. All one has to do is read the article cited to find out that the hapless idiot hurt nobody and was caught quickly. Some "terrorist." The fact that one guy claimed his election was stolen, when he got only about 1/4 of the vote, hardly is a major event. Stacey Abrams is as much of a terrorist denier as is this sad sack. Plus most people are not "deniers" but point to the myriad problems in 2020 and raise questions. After all, if the Dems would stoop so low as to invent the Russian collusion hoax, would they really not try to steal an election?
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
Joe Biden was elected. Make no mistake about that. Whether he was elected by the citizens is a totally different story. Elections are too important to be left up to mere citizens.
Bruce, I do think you, more to the point, are reiterating Katherine Boyle’s point that we AREN’T a serious nation!
Watching MSM & Social Media fawn over the Biden/Harris regime, BLM, CRT, Hunter’s laptop, “newly discovered classified documents”etc., etc., etc. reminds me of the children’s fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
I agree with most of your comment HD but the author's point, in this article, was not that WE are not a serious nation but rather that her generations are prohibited from being so by my generation. Because we won't just move aside for them. Personally I believe that it is the votes of primarily her generations which have created the problems you describe.
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
The most “liked” comment here is a rant chastising the author for daring to quote a NYT journalist, on a very specific issue, not because that particular idea was wrong but because who the journalist is and where he works. The concept that the same person might be right about something and very wrong about many other things doesn’t get any traction here, just as the MSM was expression horror at whatever Trump said out of principle, even if sometimes he happened to be right. It seems the right-wing audiences are just as hypocritical and prejudiced as the woke crowds. This doesn’t look good for the future of the Free Press, unfortunately.
I don't think that Team Weiss (same with Greenwald and Taibbi) is really trying to use the comments section in any meaningful way to improve peoples' thinking and get them out of their echo chambers (much less provide the therapy that some of the kooks in the comments really need).
These big substack writers are focused on what they have been doing for a long time: writing articles that provide readers with insights and new information, and building their platforms and teams to be more viable "alt" media sources.
Some comments are insightful and add value. Most are tedious, boring and repetitive. A noisy, annoying minority are incoherent and/or insane and/or stupid trolling.
Nah, the Free Press is a great place for differing opinions, heck most of the subscribers would disagree with Bari on a host of topics. I’m curious though, where do you get the “right-wing” label from? That’s something a very left-wing person may say, I’d hazard a guess.
Not sure you’re aware of this, but you sound like sour grapes, as if you may secretly enjoy the demise of The Free Press. Just an observation, can’t possibly be true, can it?
Good comment. I would disagree with Bari and Nellie on a few things and that is NORMAL. I subscribe here because said wonderful ladies and most of you would completely agree with me on securing our Bill of Rights at a minimum. Frankly, that is all that matters these days(imho), everything else is downstream.
You don’t seem to grasp the difference between disagreeing with somebody because you happen to have different opinions on a particular topic, on one hand, and disagreeing with somebody not because of their particular position on an issue but because of what else they said or written on different other topics, on the other. Try to think more about it, maybe you’ll get there. Or maybe not; accusing others of things they haven’t said (“secretly enjoy the demise of The Free Press”) doesn’t bode well for an open mind.
Hahahaha, thanks for the advice. And thanks for your concern on my having an open mind, rest assured I do try. But as I tell my children, don’t open your mind so far that your brains fall out leaving you incapable of being able to spot an a** when you see one. So far they’ve taken my advice, thank goodness.
Andy, with respect I re-read both the article and Bruce's comment and I zeroed in on:
"Xi Jinping, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have little in common." I am like, really?! Talk about a disconnect. They have more in common than anyone will admit in terms of dollars negotiated with each other outside of congress.
"That we are beholden to the decisions of leaders whose worldviews were shaped by the wars, famines, and innovations of a bygone world, pre-Internet and before widespread mass education, is in part why our political culture feels so stale." It may be stale, but your current 'leaders' were not cut from wars, famines or innovations from a bygone world; Joe Biden has been in government his whole life living on your dime and has never experienced the risk you might have working to pay his benefits.
That we need real experts for these precarious times. Who are the 'experts'? You mean the ones that locked us down to 'stop' a virus? Right. There are no government experts. Period. Well, except the Navy Seal who is an expert in medical care, shooting, armaments, etc.
A "rant?" Gasp. Maybe. Because the truth remains that Sorkin is an unserious ass. As Joe Kernan proved by the day when I had time to kill to watch this callow clown. Who did, sadly, suck up to the fried Bankman. Birds of a feather, so to speak.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
But your second paragraph and subsequent dialogue expressly validates the article’s argument. And as far as the Andrew Ross Sorkin comments, these remarks coming from HIM further reinforces the point being made!
Bruce, I would have thought that if you wanted to go political in your response to an essay about the unseriousness of the youngest generation, you would have pointed to the perfect tie in:
The Republican thirty something lad representing the NY Third Congressional District George Santos, a know nothing, done nothing perfect example of a Gen Z doughboy who couldn't help but embrace any lie he could find. (At least he appears to have more sartorial presence than your Fried Bankman).
Isn't he emblematic of the Lightness of Being this essay describes? And, to top it off, perfectly depicting the absurdity of electing imbeciles of any age to a political position?
Good morning Lee. I posted elsewhere here about Santos. He's despicable. My point is that they are called "our representatives." If you live in his district how do you feel about being represented by a fraud and a liar? Irrespective of party.
Here in Michigan. My representative is part of a dynasty that has been in power since 1933. John Dingell Sr. 1933 to 1955. John Dingell Jr. 1955 to 2015. Debbie Dingell 2015 to present.
And yes you did comment on poor George - I missed that.
You were commenting on his despicable behaviour unbecoming of a Representative, of which I agree. To me, though, it's his age and lack of any life experience that would underpin any semblance of integrity that connects him to the intent of this essay.
I don't think you can excuse his age. I went to college at a time when you were held to a code of conduct. The young men and women who attend our service academies are just 18 and are expected to conduct themselves honorably. You might excuse your child for lying when they're 5. But by 15 you expect better. Santos is 34. His depravity was baked in the cake long ago.
I saw an interview, maybe on NewsNation (WGN, Leland Vitterrt?) of the Republican primary opponent (incumbent?) and he said that he and his staff raised a number of red flags about Santos.
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
Excellent post that I had never thought of. Will look into this more. "Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right."
If you recall, NRO hurled vitriol toward Trump(Old Right) from the day he came down the escalator and their corrupt minions like Pauly Ryan(wife is Leftist activist) and McConnell are still fighting him today. It is pretty amazing.
The Brahmins [PMC, "woke" "left"] that Yarvin claims to oppose have been empowered primarily by the rise of digital capitalism and the traditional financial establishment. Additionally, the “woke” ideology (what I call “totalitarian humanism”) that presently constitutes the
[->] self-legitimating ideological superstructure of the ruling class
is not the sole creation of the Brahmins alone. Every ideological superstructure has a materialist base and class base (which in the case of totalitarian humanism would be digital capital, the tech revolution, “financialization” of the kind that has emerged from neoliberalism, the expanded technocratic class which is the product of the wider degree of specialization and the division of labor rooted in increased technological sophistication).
Additionally, “wokeness” is rooted in the wider infrastructure of statecraft which can be traced, at the irreducible minimum, to the collusion between the Frankfurt School and the OSS during WW2, followed by the CIA’s creation of the Congress of Cultural Freedom in the 1950s. While elements of the ideological framework of totalitarian humanism may have their roots in the cultural revolution of the 1960s/1970s, in its present form “wokeness” represents a co-optation of those cultural patterns by the liberal wing of the capitalist class ( a specific strategy that was devised by Fred Dutton as far back as 1970). The insurgent sectors of the managerial class (primarily the expanded professional class and rising middle-class sectors among traditional outgroups) became the socioeconomic foundation for this co-optation, which allowed the liberal wing of capitalism to marginalize labor unions while cultivating these rising middle-class sectors as a replacement constituency for the traditional working class.
They have a massive upside [incentive]: global trade, banking/finance and media-tech corporations, and very little disincentive, including basic morality.
International finance schemes are largely outside of any effective system of nation-state regulation.
Some of their veneer of false respectability was peeled away by the Panama Papers and a few other international finance scandals that disappeared from public memory pretty quickly.
web search: "London Review of books shaxson offshore"
Meh. As a late (1958) Boomer, I grow tired of articles whining about generational differences. We all want to live comfortably and see our children do better than we did.
What I do see as a crime against the current 18 to 30 generation was feeding them the BS that the only way to get ahead is by being indoctrinated (rather than educated) at college and to voluntarily take on debt along the way. Then, we add insult to injury by telling them that they really don't need to honor their promises and can instead foist their obligations onto those of us who paid our debts or the 60% of Americans who did not attend college, but did not voluntarily take on the debts of deadbeats. I cannot think of a worse set of values to instill in our young.
And, Charles, as a GenX, I get tired of being ignored. Umm, hello? There’s a bunch of 40/50 somethings that can’t get power away from the old farts either. Most GenX are tough, no bs, call it like we see it. We were latchkey kids and were out at night with no phones.
If wresting power away from the old farts is your game, then have you tried working campaigns and getting involved in primary elections? Have you lobbied your state leaders for change? My boys are 39 and 36 - both always vote and my youngest has attended Lobby Day at the Virginia House of Delegates with me. Because I don't know you, I'm not including you when I say that too many complain about who's in charge, but can't be bothered to get involved or even vote.
The thing about us Gen-Xers is that we learned early in life that the Boomers had spoiled everything before we had a chance to get to it. The behavior of the Boomers led to societal changes that hit us long before they ever hit the Millennials. We--not the Millennials--were the first generation that had it worse than our parents did.
As a consequence, I think many of us have been resigned to political helplessness for a long time. There just aren't enough of us for anyone to care about our votes. And most of us have been struggling too hard to put food on the table to expend energy on a fight that we are unlikely to win.
Celia, I'm curious what you think was taken from you. My 39 year old worked his way through college to become an electrical contractor and has a 4 bedroom house in a gated community. My 36 year old used his G.I. Bill to help pay for his Criminal Justice degree from GMU and he too has a 4 bedroom house (though not in a gated community). Both of them earned what they have faster than I did.
My husband and I are both 56. His father was a country veterinarian. Mine was a union steel worker. We both had middle-class lifestyles growing up.
We ourselves have spent all our adult lives in the working poor class until recently, and we're still not quite middle-class. Well-paying jobs have always been difficult to find. Returning to college and finishing our degrees in our 30s did not change anything...except saddling us with outrageous levels of student debt.
Celia, I am sorry that things have not gone well for you. I was taking college courses with University of Maryland, Asian Division on Okinawa, but I decided that my true love is software development, so I dropped out of college and started taking training courses in programming to get certified by IBM and later by Microsoft. It turns out that certs are of far greater value than a degree in the software world.
When I retired from the Marine Corps as a Gunnery Sergeant and became a professional software developer I instantly doubled my pay and it went up from there. I was fortunate enough to choose a profession that I loved and still make good money. After 23 years on active duty and another 23 years of writing code, I finally retired last year.
I will not tell you that it was all bad choices on your part because luck definitely has something to do with it. I made good choices, I moved where the money is, and I worked hard for it, but I also know that I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time and lucky that my true love also pays well. Many people follow their hearts as I did and work hard at what they love, but consequently live in near poverty for the privilege of doing what they love. My wife had a Masters in counselling and she made a third of what I did and it took us 20 years to pay off her loans.
I will however say that I do not see how your prosperity was stolen from you by my generation when opportunities abound even today. Companies are complaining that they cannot find enough qualified workers and these are largely not low paying jobs. My boys are not yet making what I did at my height, but they are both on track to exceed me before they retire.
... one day I was sitting in a meeting about how to make the world work better — actually it was a meeting about how the new global trade regime, NAFTA and GATT and the World Trade Organization, is likely to make the world work worse. The more I listened, the more I began to simmer inside. “This is a HUGE NEW SYSTEM people are inventing!” I said to myself. “They haven’t the SLIGHTEST IDEA how this complex structure will behave,” myself said back to me. “It’s almost certainly an example of cranking the system in the wrong direction — it’s aimed at growth, growth at any price!! And the control measures these nice, liberal folks are talking about to combat it — small parameter adjustments, weak negative feedback loops — are PUNY!!!”
Suddenly, without quite knowing what was happening, I got up, marched to the flip chart, tossed over to a clean page, and wrote:
Bad social science. Boomers were subjected to well understood social conditioning, just as you were.
The "behavior" of Boomers was shaped by their conditioning, and by social, economic and technological disruption.
The "sense making" system that had been put in place prior to the 60s/WW2 failed.
A few people on the social margins understood that there were deep problems that the system could not correct, but everything was buried under an increasing avalanche of bullshit that wasn't accounted for.
You are trying to blame the 99% for the bullshit that the 1% did.
You yourself are a perfect example of the mode of failure that is the cause of the problems.
I don't see much evidence that you have even the beginning of any awareness of the 75-100 years of research and commentary that exists that attempts to understand the problem at the deeper levels.
I see no evidence that you are capable of understanding the problem beyond a ridiculously shallow level (same as most Boomers).
That is the real problem.
You are (apparently) clueless, just as most of them were clueless.
There were all sorts of people in both the WW2 and Boomer generation that warned about problems (some long before the 1960s), but the masses didn't care, the "system" didn't care, etc.
Some of that was that "Manufacturing Consent" (Chomsky) and the creation of controlled opposition on both the "right" and "left".
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
When the vast majority of candidates have been folk who give steaming turds a bad name standing for two parties of equal disrepute almost forever, all you recommend achieves what exactly except your further penury; exploitation; and deprivation of freedoms?
I'm paraphrasing from memory, but Robert Heinlein once said that of course the game is rigged, but you stand no chance at all if you don't play the game. Nothing will change if we all just sit around and snivel about it.
While populism is currently being blasphemed it has always served as course correction. And while we historically have embraced a two-party system the parties themselves have changed. Personally I like to think this is what is occurring now. Wishful thinking no doubt but a girl's gotta dream.
I do not exist in the metaworld nor will I ever do so. I am very firmly grounded. It does explain your, er, well let's just say speech pattern. Well that and being a left coast hippie functionary. I don't think our mentalities are compatible so see no point in further discourse.
That's a bingo! I thought so. I have a book of collected Bloom County comics and Bill the cat always has a rough go of it. Those comics are incredibly well done.
Yup, sure have. I worked Election Day for a city council candidate, who lost. Been to a couple of fundraisers for local candidates. Written many letters over the years too. Nothing changed.
Though a boomer, I agree with you PH. Gen X has been given short shrift. Perhaps they’re uniquely positioned to guide the country forward, sandwiched between two self-important generations.
People were told that a disaster had started. They (mostly) ignored the warnings, instead listening to utter frauds like Reagan and Clintons-Obama and now Biden the senile buffoon (who the elites look like they are going to dump, soon, and replace with a more credible puppet).
The ancient Israelites would beg to differ, and would have forgiven everyone's debt (not just students) across the board every 49 years, known as a jubilee. Regardless, the student debtors are just as much victims of this racket as the taxpayers are. Especially if they went to public colleges and universities, that really should have been free or at least affordable all along (like it was for most Boomers, and still is in some countries to this day).
College is no longer affordable because the federal government took over guaranteeing student loans, thus incentivizing raising prices at several times the rate of inflation. OTOH, while government does enforce taxation at gunpoint, nobody put a gun to those students' heads - their debt was voluntary.
Their debt was voluntary, I agree. As such, students should have been given back the right to go bankrupt and in turn have the ability to negotiate their debt - like all consumers and companies.
wrong, as usual. a massive brainwashing campaign took place by higher education.
obama took advantage of the paradigm shift toward "diversity" to rewarm cultural-leftism and make it seem inevitable that "success" in improving socioeconomic status was dependent on college.
obama was able to turn the college loan system into a tax that fed big money to the federal govt at a time that Republicans in Congress would not agree to increase taxes.
obama stabbed the working classes in the back (same as clintons). no surprise.
To Ajax: yes the rate at which college has become unattainable is insane, and this needs to be addressed prior to forgiving all debt. But free? To quote “The Princess Bride”: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
The Jubilee reference is a bit of a cherry pick but I will agree that the cost of college for this generation compared to previous generations is outrageous and is the direct result of Boomers not having anything better to do then rape and pillage... Boomers in this context are the over-educated egg heads and Pampered, spoiled brats that hung around at rock concerts dropped acid and ran to Canada during a war instead of as the author points out growing up and getting serious themselves.
Frank, the increase in cost is directly due to the government guaranteeing loans beginning in 2010. Also, while colleges and universities used to be comprised of about 10% administrative staff, instructors and professors are now outnumbered by administrative staff.
Yes, the vast majority of Boomers tried acid, but then we grew up and very few went to Canada. The vast majority of the 59,000 American that died in Vietnam were Boomers who answered their country's call to fight in a war instigated and lead by what we now call The Greatest Generation. In short, they stepped up.
College students (and, more importantly, their parents who are largely paying the bills) demand more things which are expensive to provide. When I went to college we had a very basic gym and a choice of three fairly crappy meals in the dining hall. Today, students demand student centers with olympic pools, the latest fitness equipment, multiple dining options (vegan, vegetarian, paleo, and every kind of ethnic food under the sun). Also, my college had a psychologist on-call for emergencies but now all colleges have full-time counseling centers.
Dorm rooms used to just be cinderblocks with a bed and desk. Now they have internet, cable TV, full kitchens on each floor, etc.
It's not just student loans driving up the costs, but a desire for a more upscale experience. And the sad thing to me, when I went to visit my alma mater, was that, on Friday night, everyone was just sitting in their rooms watching streaming videos or texting vs. socializing and forming the connections that will be able to help and support them in adulthood.
Charles you are correct that the endless streams of government liquidity make it possible to increase cost exponentially. I would argue that your next point is precisely why those costs increased. The over-educated Boomer elite who were tired of dropping acid and indeed did grow up and go to school needed jobs and so therefore they created an elaborate administrative system for themselves. This General pattern of the boomer generation raping and pillaging as I said can be found in every field of endeavor especially in the financialization of everything in this country and in the west. You are correct that the call was answered by the boomer generation as well as the entire country being built in the factories of the boomer generation however I am careful to differentiate the over-educated elite of the East and West Coast with the remainder of Boomers who have held this country together with their blood and sweat... And yes many times my comments are hyperbolic ..
I am a Boomer and I do not know ONE who engaged in that behavior. The ones you describe are the ones who begat the current generation. SBFs parents for example. I am guessing you can find a lot of them at Sta-a-a-hnford. They really need to learn how to cast an educated ballot.
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
Did ancient Israelites college education include $18M per year for wages and benefits paid to DEI staff? As a Boomer, we didn't have DEI staff, luxury housing, haute cuisine, state of the art recreation facilities, multi-million dollar athletic stadiums... All of these amenities are required post-Boomer and have absolutely nothing to do with a college education.
I would ask who is in power and position to make the sweeping changes? Who are those in power? Who are those hiring the DEI ...hell, who came up with the whole philosophy in the first place? and also the other Army of administrators? I think the answer in all of these questions including who created a financial aid guaranteed by the government would be the Boomer generation.
100% and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference so those whiny self-indulgent b****** need to step up to the plate or the whole world's going to go down the drain.😉
I think the debt the ancient Israelites is far different than debt today. I think today's debt stems from failure to appreciate how destructive spiritually debt can be. And it is true that education costs were less for Boomers although I don't know if that is true once adjusted for inflation. What I do know is that if we do not reckon with debt, personally and as a nation, and get our monetary policy under control a lot of dystopian science fiction is going to come true.
You are correct that it is different today. The debt racket is actually WORSE and even more usurious than it was back then. So a jubilee would apply *a fortiori* to the modern day.
How do you feel about the proposed debt forgiveness in SF, coupled with a lump sum payment and annual payments for more years than any of us will live? How do you feel about the US defaulting on that $32 trillion debt?
I actually have no problem with it, despite not having any dog directly the fight as I currently have no debt of my own. But the massive debt overhang weighs down the entire economy, so actually we all have a dog in this fight.
If Wall Street gets bailed out, so too should We the People. It's only fair.
As for defaulting on the debt, as the Donald famously said in 2016, you never have to worry about the federal government defaulting on the debt, since you can just print the money. Yes, he actually said that, and he's not wrong, even though I can't stand him myself.
I pay my bills so think others should as well. The federal debt is a time bomb that the electorate really.
needs to educate itself about. I am not a fan of Wall Street. Or bailouts of industry. Too big to fail makes a mockery of us all. Federal monetary is a joke and has been for over a century now.
College was affordable when students had to work hard to gain admission, did not want to pay for elaborate perks or gourmet cafeteria food or luxury apartments instead of dorm rooms. I took out loans, worked a co-op job, sought out scholarships, and valued my hard-earned degrees. So did prospective employers who needed the skills I acquired.
College was affordable before legislatures drastically reduced funding under the influence of neoliberal economics (which Carter cracked the door to, and which Reagan then threw the door open to, followed by Clintons-Obama-Biden).
Bloated education administration was driven by the availability of funny money, which was a product of neoliberalism.
Free for Boomers? Where? This Boomer worked minimum age, walked miles to and from work, saved enough money to attend college and did. Nothing was handed to me. It is maddening to be blamed for the woes of the state of the country. Not everyone grew up like a Kennedy.
News flash: in a civilized society, we all subsidize each other to one degree or another throughout the lifecycle. That's exactly why K-12 is free to students and paid for by taxpayers, so why not college as well? And we all benefit from a more educated population. Other countries understand that, and yet a subset of Americans have a king-sized chip on their shoulders about that for some reason.
You have a point - on the top of your head! Why not free grad school, medical school, law school or dental school? How far do we go in subsidizing the elite educated class? And for those of us who paid for our own education, then paid for our children's education, we are now asked to pay for everyone's education. When you get something for free, you value it less. Work for anything and you value it more. It was your limited time, part of your one and only life, that went into getting what you bought for yourself. That is how you make better decisions - when you have your own skin in the game.
News flash: if the schools actually educated, I might agree with you. Unfortunately, colleges and universities today are cranking out poorly educated, but highly indoctrinated drains on society.
It’s very handy to cite as an example Ancient Israelites and their debt forgiveness, and you’re not wrong. But if you’ve looked lately most students are taught to hate Israel.
Israel is festering cesspool of psychotic warmongers of the kind that Jeremiah warned about. You don't even follow your own religion, which isn't a surprise.
The bible is almost entirely fictional; there is not a shred of truth in it; nothing at all that stands up to historical or archaeological investigation except as colouring.
Have you ever seriously studied the Bible, all 66 books, written by various authors down through millennia? It’s filled with every kind of literary form; prose, poetry, wisdom, law, prophecy, song, history, to name a few. It has every type of literary device; chiasm, alliteration, acrostic, allusion, anthropomorphism, hyperbole, idiom, metonymy, paradox, I could go on but the list is very long. It’s embedded with science, archeology, geography, astronomy, etc.
So well done you if you have such great insight that trumps thousands of scholars down through the ages who’ve studied it, that you can be so dismissive of this book that tells of the human story.
By the way, since we as humans live our lives based on stories told, what story do you have to replace the, in your opinion, “fictional” Bible?
you are severely delusional and apparently don't understand much about "science".
ancient mythic cultures didn't have much science.
the most scientific-rational cultures had strong traditions that rejected, for at least short periods of time, the superstitions in the Bible and other mythic texts/traditions.
the Enlightenment (1700s, classical liberalism) is rooted more in "pagan" rationalism than superstitious texts from the middle east.
Perhaps Charles the reason we fed them the BS to become 'indoctrinated' is because we who went to university forty to fifty years ago actually had a worthwhile experience and learned things, especially other viewpoints and ways of thinking.
I think it has come as a surprise to millions of Americans these past number of years to see how our university system has been so cowed to a uniformity of thought, to censorship of the outlier and the free thinker, and the acceptance and even the elevation of the mediocre in talent and excellence.
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has had a huge influence, no doubt about that. But it's worthwhile to note that far left progressivism has been around for decades, usually outside the Democratic Party, and always lurking around campuses, inculcating. I think at around the time of the Occupy movement and in earlier manifestations of anti corporate activism in the late '90s, this brand of a Far Left was slowly incorporated in the Democratic Party, helped along by, of course, Bernie Sanders.
A so called Big Tent party, mainstream Dems thought they could control it all - but wrong they were (not unlike the GOP and the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus..).
So to be clear, you are blaming the "progressive wing of the Democratic Party" for the totalitarianism, intellectual fraudulence and Orwellian conformity that is inherent to the "woke" faux religion?
Not corrupt media-tech oligarchs, not the global financiers that fund the "progressives"? Not the unholy alliance of the Democratic party with the military-industrial-complex?
I'm not saying they weren't funded. Of course they were and still are. But there has to be a movement to fund first. Intellectual fraudulence is putting it mildly, it goes hand in hand with the conformity you mention. Totally in agreement there - since it all leads to the consensual censorship on campus faculties and student bodies alike, which is where this conversation first started.
And I did say influence - the 'blame' can go to the larger modern progressive movement that's been around for at least forty years, and in my opinion largely outside the Democratic Party for the most part, until now.
Re the military industrial complex, I think both parties have enjoyed the mutual trough feeding experience enough to be equally culpable from the heady days of Truman.
Libertarians were stabbed in the back over and over and over for decades by corrupt "right wing" neolib/neocon billionaire think tanks (some of which were CIA "controlled opposition").
The Koch Bros created the "movement" per se, but it drew from long simmering populist resentment going back to neoconfederate subculture, and marginalized border reivers and celts at least 500 years ago.
Neoliberalism ensured that the empty, hollow, meaningless posturing of corrupt educational bureaucrats would be exploited to screw over college students and society in general, on the assumption that college bureaucracies would stay the same as they were after WW2 when the great expansion of education happened.
In reality the growth model of conveyor-belt education was in crisis by the early 1970s (Eric Weinstein), and the only thing that has been done since then is to add layer after layer of band-aids to a gaping, gangrenous wound.
The public and legislatures that fund public higher education prefer their delusions to reality.
Fixing (burning down dysfunctional educational administration) education is too hard, and frankly above the pay grade of most of the political elites. They are completely incompetent.
RT, I have no more love of the banking system than you do. Wilson should have been hung for what he did to this country. OTOH, the federal government began guaranteeing student loans in 2010 and regardless of how much interest the banks have collected over the years, it means that all loans guaranteed by the government that are defaulted on, or forgiven, will be paid off by the taxpayer. This is unfair to those of us who paid our loans and even more unfair to the 60% of Americans who never voluntarily entered into student debt in the first place.
I feel this. I’m 51 and still paying off student loan debt. It’s the compound interest that gets people. Paying interest on interest when your loans are in forbearance almost guarantees you’ll never get them paid off.
I liked this. At age 30, I am expecting my first child. Own my home with my wife (28). Working to build a family business. And I just roll my eyes at a lot of my friends and peers living it up at Burning Man for the 5th year in a row or bar hopping still. Yet they think we’re the lame ones lol.
You are obviously not the lame one, Anthony. But neither, necessarily are they. If someone finds a mate at the age of forty or fifty, has a child, buys a house at that time and starts to look at life differently - all of which occurred after years of doing the opposite of you - that doesn't mean it's any less valid. I did it that way. And in many cases I saw friends who married in their twenties divorce in acrimony years later, divide their assets in pain and lose time with their kids.
Doing it young does not make it any better. You make the move when you're ready for the consequences, when your awareness of all that the decision entails means you'll get it right.
Maybe it takes a few years of Burning Man or hiking in Europe or having numerous relationships to get there for some of us..
And when you get older you will have a nice loving family to be a part of. I know too many people who focused on career, money, freedom to “be me” and now they are in their late 30s, 40s and think they can just flick a switch and find the right person. Doesn’t work that way.
Anyway, good for you Anthony. You have it right. Wish you and your family the absolute best!
This is all true.... as a university professor for a few decades, I can say with absurdity that colleges and universities are not helping the situation...
That is so true! So many college and university administrations infantilize students. Giving in to demands for safe spaces and trigger warnings. Stanford even has a list of censored words because they might "harm" students! It's ridiculous. Bring back rigorous debate and responsibility.
This is awesome. But what now? I remember when I was in (a very liberal) college and wanted to major in public policy, my immigrant father sat me down and said “what is your trade?” You need a trade to survive, pick one. He did not believe in blind “follow your dreams”, because he knew what it takes to survive. 25 years later, I could not be more grateful. But beyond passing it on to my kids, what now?
My mother was a very similar career dream killer, “how will you pay that off??” “What if you want a family??” Was upset about it at the time but now seeing how many people spend thousands majoring in something they can’t do. Grateful for her pushback!
I got the same from my immigrant parents. “That’s not a career it’s a hobby!” I didn’t totally listen but I tried. Every generation has its Peter pans. My 17 year old son doesn’t want responsibility or to have to grow up either. We talk regularly about finding meaning in spite of the struggles but it remains to be seen if we can instill what it takes to be an adult - and a serious one!
When my daughter (now 47, very successful & mother of 4), an only child, was 16, we often discussed college choices & her future. She’d get VERY exasperated and say, “Yes, BUT you are a realist and I am an idealist”! My response, “I pay all your bills now, so you can afford to be an idealist. Wait until you have to start paying your own way. I guarantee you’ll become a realist then”
Unless he’s showing a willingness to work very hard at school or in a job, and to apply himself in life, which would mean you would be right to help him him along the way, you will have to cut the apron strings as he turns 18.
It will help him to set him free to make his own way, financially and otherwise. It’s a very hard thing for a parent to do, but it’s the best thing we can do for our children. It feels cruel, yet it’s the ultimate kindness.
I’m 49. I was told growing up that I just had to go to college and learn computers. I hated HS and wanted to go to the trade school for my Jr and Sr years. My parents refused, told me that’s where the burnouts and flunkys go. I joined the military my sr year bc I didn’t know what else to do. When I got out I tried college on my GI Bill and just didn’t like it. I spent my 20s working at a bicycle shop in midtown Manhattan. I rented a room in a shithole for $350/mo. Rat infested nastiness.
Age 29 I moved to rural Ohio and found my calling. I went through a apprenticeship at a manufacturing facility and became a Journeyman. Over the years I continued my education (employer paid btw) and obtained a AS degree in Electrical Engineering and Automation and Robotics.
The skilled trades have been very, very good to me. I was able to get married, but a house and raise two boys.
My wife and I are empty nesters now. We sold the house and moved to a suburb of Chicago. I’m working for myself as a “Home Maintenance Specialist” aka Handyman and I am killing it.
Of my 2 boys the oldest has followed my footsteps into manufacturing and a skilled trade. He bought a house last year. The younger is trying to “figure things out” and is currently living with his gf and her family. He works but not a skilled trade job. He spends his money on tattoos and eating out.
I’ll be curious to see how they are doing in 10 years.
The skilled trades are the way to go. I cannot say that enough. HVAC, electrical, plumbing, etc.
I'm with you 100%......except for the part where you moved to a suburb of Chicago. Ugh....get out! Come up to southern WI where you can still own a gun and criminals aren't in a no bail system.
I love this. thanks for telling your story here. I agree there's a lot of stigma around learning a trade but the kids who find that path make way more money and have a lot less debt - and they're happy! I wish I had the skill to be a handyman and be able to say "I fixed that!" or "I made that!" at the end of everyday.
I agree! I work in a decently paying field but I’m still paying off my college. I went to community college but the emphasis on over education has just created more debt that I don’t make enough money to pay off anytime soon. I’ve been telling my husband our kids should go to trade school! We will always need people in trades!
I take your point, SYP. Most fathers would say that. Mine did. And yet if all kids followed that advice of not following your dreams would we have had all the music, art, theatre and literature that we've enjoyed for generations? Sometimes, just sometimes, dreams need to be followed.
Totally agree and thought about that both then and as I wrote my post this morning :) But I’d argue if you do want to “follow your dream” just know what that entails, both good and bad, including the challenges it could introduce if there is not somebody that will pay you for it :). Eyes wide open!
Then look for people and groups that are fighting against that scheme.
Stop supporting people and groups that support the scheme.
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* excerpt:
Our society is being rapidly reduced to a feudal state, a process now being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of small businesses are near extinction, millions more losing their jobs and many others stuck into the status of a property-less serfs. The big winners have been the “expert” class of the clerisy and, most of all, the tech oligarchs, who benefit as people rely more on algorithms than human relationships.
Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last seventy years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging.
The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. At the apex of the new order are two classes―a reborn clerical elite, the clerisy, which dominates the upper part of the professional ranks, universities, media and culture, and a new aristocracy led by tech oligarchs with unprecedented wealth and growing control of information.
There is a lot of generalization going on here. The Boomer and Gen X generations pushed college as the only way to get ahead in life and to delay getting married and having children. It worked for them. As more people went to college, it became much more competitive. You can't get into any college in my without at least at 3.8 GPA along with very high test scores and loads of extracurriculars. Well meaning parents did everything for their kids so they could focus on academics just to have a fighting chance at going to college. The kids never learned basic life skills or got a high school job but they have terrific grades!
Degrees have become less valuable overall, so we ended up with a bunch of smart Millennials with no real life skills. They need years to catch up, have loads of student debt and live with a much higher cost of living.
Generational bickering is getting old. How do we fix the problem? For me, I'm teaching my boys to work hard, no social media, and not focusing on a college degree. They will be better off with a strong work ethic first and little to no debt.
You can get into pretty much any state college by transferring from community college with good grades. The very high test scores and extracurriculars only matter if you have been duped into believing your future depends on getting into the college of your dreams, right away, as soon as you graduate high school.
my youngest son is a National Merit Scholar, top 2% of his class and did well on the SAT's. He received a partial scholarship offer from a smaller university ($22k per year). My wife was ecstatic until I pointed out that for that school with the scholarship offer it would still leave about $30k per year we would have to pay out of pocket.
Your comment - "degrees have become less valuable overall" - is definitely true, but with the understanding that the key word is "overall". Some degrees are worth far more than others.
We have two kids in their 20's - both of whom did well back in their high school days, and balanced academics, athletics, activities, and part-time jobs. My son majored in Computer Engineering in college and has started a nice career with a high-tech company and makes a very nice income. My daughter majored in Accounting/Finance and has started a nice career with a government agency making a pretty nice income.
Both of them are 1000 times better off than if they had majored in Gender Studies or Art History.
My daughter got a four year BA in geology, specifically geographic information science. She has received every job she ever applied for in the field. Really good jobs.
I can relate to the theme of pursuing your dreams and goals while forgoing real life in your twenties. I just published a piece aptly enough entitled, "The Nomad's escape" about my time living in South East Asia (still living here).
As I enter my thirties I begin to see the non-reality of it all and realize that although I'm living a very "cool" life, I miss things like community, family, being a part of a nation that I belong to. Of course I don't blame anyone and my life is my own, but the message that I continually saw in college and after, was to go do fun and exciting things. Have adventures and see the world, not start a family or join a local organization.
While I agree with a lot in this piece, and have witnessed it myself as a millennial, I would say the upcoming generation is even more coddled - iGen aka Gen Z. I hear these two generations often lumped together, and there are differences that cannot be ignored. It started with Gen Y for sure, and you nailed it with the helicopter parenting, gap years, and advice to "live life" and "go find yourself," but it is worse for Gen Z. Gen Y was the last generation to have a childhood without the internet. I grew up playing outdoors, riding my bike, and being called in when it was time to eat. So did all of my friends. That is largely no more, and Gen Z had none of that, and their sensitivities and neuroses are even worse than Gen Y. They live online, have less sex, favor censorship, have more anxiety and depression, have less of a desire to start a family (as you mentioned), and are more concerned with creating their identities (aka avatars) than building their characters - like you said. If the upcoming generations have all been babied so much, what happens when they do finally step into the roles Gen X leaves behind (maybe when they're in there late 90s) and there are real, serious, international and global threats that must be faced that aren't in the form of words they don't like? Will Gen Y and Gen Z be up for the task? Or will we run in fear with our tails between our legs? So many of these young people have been victimizing themselves and fighting over who is more victimized than the other. It's absurd! It's cowardly and narcissistic - and as a member of one of these generations, I know it and I have seen it. I think the only thing that can turn the tides for these rising adults is to recognize their own weaknesses and work on building grit, facing adversity, being comfortable with disagreement, and getting over being offended. So...to grow up!
There are gap years and gap years. Spending a year (or perhaps two) between high school and college in some sort of serious job or service is likely worth it. While the extended adolescence is something to be restrained and hopefully reverted, it's still a reality that few kids today are ready upon graduation from high school to commit to the level of debt required for a college education.
Indeed, this is a big part of the dramatic decrease in cost-benefit of college education. Boomer and millennial parents push their kids to college directly out of high school, at which point they start accumulating debt before they have anything resembling a coherent plan to pay it off.
I can't tell you how many of my generation dropped out of school because of this accumulation of debt and lack of corresponding plan, and then a short few years later, when they had a more realistic trajectory in mind, remained hobbled by the debt from their previous abortive attempt.
This whole process incentivizes people into dead-end diplomas, and incentivizes schools to care more about getting new students than creating graduates.
I see a real "gap year" as something which directly contributes to developing maturity, whereas jumping right into yet another coddling institution is unlikely to provide such.
So many good points made here Marshall. I recently read that there is a surplus of History PhD's coming out of graduate schools but not enough jobs for all of them. So we are going to have a useless class of PhD's whose only skill is looking at history through a critical race sense which translates great for a job at Target. Not to mention the crippling debt.
There are some better models out there. Germany pushes students into apprenticeship and what we would traditionally call "blue collar" jobs such as plumber, HVAC, electrician are held in HIGH, HIGH regard and esteem. They have a different cultural attitude towards the highly skilled jobs and help students along a long-term, skill-building path.
Israel has mandatory 2 year military service for its graduates, and there have been models suggested in the US that would allow students to "serve" in some capacity in the US be it through military or expanded programs in AmericCorps and Teach for America.
All that aside, if it's not a government program - which I would hate more government intervention - there's just getting a stupid job as a teenager at McDonald's or Starbucks that can help build soft skills and allow a teenager to figure out how to be more responsible in the real world. I have held a job (and often two through college) since I was 14 years old and set up a bank account when I was 15. Those things alone were HUGE in setting me up for success beyond a useless college degree. So much so that when I graduated during the Great Recession, I fell back on the work I did in highschool: I went back to waitressing for awhile.
I agree with every single one of these points and I would highlight this:
"So many of these young people have been victimizing themselves and fighting over who is more victimized than the other."
I think Jonathan Haidt had an article on this recently. I am noticing it in the younger generations as well. It is a real problem, but likely one that will get worse before better.
Haidt has a great book if you haven't read it yet on this issue - the Coddling of the American Mind. I HIGHLY recommend that. Additionally, you should look into Luke Burgis' work on Rene Girard - it's about mimesis and how it controls so much of our wanting and desire as humans. He uses it to explain fads and popular culture, even politics and ideologies. Burgis' substack is Anti-Mimetic (and he wrote a book called Wanting, I believe - which I have not read yet) and lately I have been listening to many of his interviews on various podcast (Subversive, Rebel Wisdom, Daily Stoic, and The Symbolic World) about the most mimetic things people are doing right now is being the victim and playing the scapegoat and how upside down and backwards that is. It's fascinating to listen to his studies of Girard's work and I'm still not familiar enough with it to write or talk about it in-depth but it's a great rabbit hole to dive down.
Millennial here. Stable job, married, one kid, home ownership. I’m sympathetic to the main point of the article and agree with it, but there were just so many generalizations and anecdotes. Plus there are so many positive things from the last 30 years. If anything I think on some level women have gotten more serious and men less (Richard Reeves has been on the podcast circuit and discusses this in his book Of Boys and Men). If men-children get serious in their later 30s, can you blame women for pursuing careers over kids? And I don’t think you can decouple the current attitude toward marriage with the divorce explosion of the 90s. Society has also encouraged the girl-boss over motherhood, which is less an issue of unseriousness and more an issue of priorities.
Regarding politics - definitely agree: there is something very activisty about how younger leaders operate. Getting into Congress is one more hot scene for promoting yourself on social or regular media, as opposed to getting work done, and we see it on both sides of the aisle.
its the opposite. Men have stayed unserious and women have gone from serious to even more unserious than men. The amount of women i know in their early 30s who still party and travel like they are in college is at least the same if not more than the men. Women used to be the oens begging men to settle down. Now its even.
What you don’t hear from the organizations once known as news outlets is any reporting on what are the policies of the new Congress.
The actual leadership in the House of Representatives is demanding:
* an abrupt end to Pelosi’s catastrophic floor rules and the return of open debate on public policy;
* an abrupt end to Pelosi’s catastrophic fiscal policies (both her terms, 2006-2010 and 2018-2022, were the worst fiscal policies in history and directly harmed the economy) and massive cuts in government spending to reduce both Pelosi’s debt and Pelosi’s inflation;
* Term limits in Congress which would get rid of Pelosi and all the rest of the exact people the article complains about.
I want a mandatory retirement age, as opposed to term limits. This may sound silly but Mary Kay tells its most senior consultants that they must retire at 65. It makes room for the next generation to step up.
If we’re going to tell everyone over 65 they can’t work anymore, we’d better be willing to pony up a lot more financial support. We’re living longer than we used to, and growing old is expensive. That 70-year-old you see behind the cash register at the grocery store isn’t there because it’s fun.
PH, you may want to tell that to a senior who hasn't saved enough for retirement, which is around 35% of Americans. I think it's even higher than that. Seniors are driving school buses for a reason.
The main point is that term limits don't matter. With terms limits, non-elected (usually corrupt) "party bureaucrats" just get more power and control and the actual elected politicians just become more puppet-like.
Perhaps, but I think age does matter. Bureaucrats already have too much power supporting politicians who should be in nursing homes. Term limits might help in getting rid of the walking dead.
Yep. Those things, the Twitter revelation's and this slow emergence of subscription journalism as a truth based re-capture of the American national dialogue. It matters and we should take the win. It's not them--it's us--as in "..WE the people..." My resolve in '23 is to recondition myself to think of America as what it is, a Constitutional Republic based on individual liberty and the personal power and responsibility of citizenship.----The dying cockroach position never helps anyone.
I would like to think that a lack of rootedness is a big contributor to this. Modernity wants to dissolve all of our social connections and sense of place so we can be pure consumers and fill that hole with Chinese made garbage, social media, and porn that makes your life worse. Then, in a pit of 21st century existential darkness, you can finish things off with opioids and fentanyl.
And a big part of the lack of rootedness is people leaving, or having never joined, a faith community. Despite its many faults, and there are many, my Catholic school upbringing made me a permanent part of a group, with defined values and boundaries. Although I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, I am still a part of that group.
When your church's highest value is child abuse? You are just lying to yourself. I saw thru the church in catechesis when I was nine or ten and walked away from Omelas in my mid-teens. Decades later my chemistry teacher, in minor orders, was banged up for twenty-odd years of child-buggery. Between Biden and Pell Catholicism is just a very; very; sick joke.
Bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think? While still no fan of Catholicism, I would suggest you not throw the baby out with the bathwater. And, it was just an example, chill.
I've been posting here and on my blog about the work of Murray Bowman, who saw emotional growth and what he called "differentiation" as in effect anti-insanity. As a creed, true Liberalism--I have in mind here Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and 1975 Norman Lear (not present day Norman Lear, unfortunately)--requires MATURITY. Individuation.
As Bowen described it, differentiated people are able to undertake creative tasks independently without coddling, but retain the capacity not just for health social activity, but deep and lasting friendship, and the capacity not just to tolerate but embrace and benefit from meaningful ideational and behavioral diversity.
And it's worth noting that his real work was studying clinical schizophrenia. He undertook the unusual and interesting task of asking the FAMILES of psychotic mental patients to live IN THE ASYLUM. They had their own apartments of course, but were asked to participate in group sessions several times a week, where family dynamics were observed.
It has become, I think, received wisdom that both schizophrenia and alcoholism are transmitted intergenerationally. One plausible explanation is that both are genetic. But his argument was that pathologies are transmitted intergenerationally also SOCIALLY.
Each family will have a least individuated/mature child. And since people tend to marry people of roughly their own developmental level, that least mature child will marry a least mature child from another family. That family in turn will have a least mature child, who will repeat this process. Across 3-4 generations the immaturity turns into clinical psychosis.
And here is the point he was much too conservative to make: that psychosis amounts to immaturity simply taken to the next level. Schizophrenia, on my reading of his work, is simply the emotional level of a 2 year old in a physiologically mature body. Their thinking is disordered because they are two year olds.
And he lays the groundwork for the claim that SOCIETIES can in effect become schizophrenic. Their reality testing can become distorted through unmanaged anxiety to the point they loose their ability to distinguish what is real from what is imaginary. I would argue the claim that "Trump is literally Hitler" DEFINITELY falls in this category. Dislike or distrust the man all you like: he is not freaking Hitler. Period. This is not a discussion grown ass adults should have to have with anyone over the age of 5.
But in sum, the overall differentiation of our society is declining. He talked about that too, and pointed out that adult solutions to real problems cannot be expected from immature, childish people. What can expected are patchwork solutions that feel good at the moment, and which have no real thought or plan behind them, and which reliably fail in the long term. And that in fact is what we are seeing everywhere.
I don't know what the solutions are. I have some ideas. But for now I am contenting myself to little things like this. Describing the problem accurately is a start at least. Speaking truth is always intrinsically valuable, or so I choose to believe.
I will never forget CNN hosting the laughable Drs. Bandy X Li and Allen Frances; my jaw dropping as the latter intoned that Trump had killed more people than Hitler, Stalin and Mao, combined, as Li and the witless dolt (Stelter) hosting the charade nodded along somberly. Taking such people seriously - let alone giving them a national forum - is not the mark of a serious, mature or sustainable nation.
Bruce: I agree with your politics, but your comment puts up a bit of a straw man: Brian Stelter on CNN with unserious guests should not be deemed to represent a “nation.” And CNN, with its shrunken ratings, isn’t much of a national forum; it has a niche audience at most.
... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.
... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. Societies that first succeed at making a new combination gain advantages over competitors and attain a paramount influence over the nature of international conflict and cooperation. If a major power finds itself stymied by the effort to achieve a new combination, it risks being superseded.
... A people’s adaptability to the rise of a new form appears to depend largely on the local nature of the tribal form. It may have profound effects on what happens as the later forms get added. For example, the tribal form has unfolded differently in China and in America. Whereas the former has long revolved around extended family ties, clans, and dynasties, the latter has relied on the nuclear family, heavy immigration, and a fabric of fraternal organizations that provide quasi-kinship ties (e.g., from the open Rotary Club to the closed Ku Klux Klan). These differences at the tribal level have given unique shapes to each nation’s institutional and market forms, to their ideas about progress, and, now, to their adaptability to the rise of networked NGOs.
Maybe. But CNN is but a part of the media complex. I'm sure the same nonsense was spouted on MSNBC, owned by the very corporate NBC and run by putative "adults." And what of the "entertainment" we watch? All part of the infantile corporate culture that has elevated true nitwits and scoundrels to power and immense wealth, while they produce garbage products and have taken the dignity of work away from their employees.
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
The American poet Robert Bly wrote THE SIBLING SOCIETY now, almost a half century ago. Bly and those of us in the men's movement, coast to coast, recognized the emergence of the perpetual half adult, the Peter Pan- 'Puer aeternus'- forever child of fairy land. Many of us, despite the anti-human, life butchering sterility of the toxic femininity denouncing us, were able to seize and expand upon a meaningful, inner world reality, based on stewardship and responsible personal agency, that provided a transcendent, and a connection, to the living dimensionality of the universe we all inhabit. Many on the quest were there because of the damage wrought by the feminist/bureaucratic war on fatherhood and the family. Today, conveniently, the word mother is verboten by those same mercenary monsters so willingly swilling at the trough of totalitarian finance.
Those interested in what happens when mercenary ideological sycophancy and totalitarian finance join hands to destroy a people need look no further than the TikTok video's of a young woman displaying her uterus in a glass jar or the young woman, butchered and abandoned, clutching a basket of pills, pleading to other young people not to make the mistake she had. Or, simple mindfulness of the 10,000 manufactured psyop cuts slow bleeding, distorting and stealing American lives every day of the week.
Other refresher course's in what happens when totalitarian finance employs ideological sycophant's to destroy a nation can be found in the blood letting horror of the French revolution. More recently, the involvement of the Wall Street/ international financial cabal that ultimately brought Stalin to power who then, as in 2008 U.S.A,. looted the Russian treasury. Pay no attention, those farmers in Holland losing their homes and livelihoods to criminal finance are far far away. (So were those on the train to Auschwitz.)
Oh look--"..it's the Teeth Mother naked at last.."
I'm going to permit myself one more comment, then adult responsibilities.
Allan Bloom described and to a very great extent anticipated all this in his Closing of the American Mind. That book is as useful today as it should have been then. He described infantilism, safe spaces, trigger warnings, and all of that, in effect. And it remains the best treatments of Rousseau and Nietzche that I have read. And all the contemporary condemnations notwithstanding, he was a gay, Jewish, atheist Democrat. He simply loved the life of the mind, and the idiocy even then was ruining all his fun.
In my opinion one solution to all this is to do a better job selling maturity, selling the value of the feelings you get AFTER long hard patient work on a difficult task. This is what Mihaly Csikscentmihalyi (that's close) talked about with Flow. Flow is the happiness of mature people.
And Bloom himself complained then (late 80's) about the cult of the Rock Star. All our emotions, we are told, need to be powerful, easy, and as continual as possible. All successful rock stars are rich. Why are they all on drugs? Because they can't stand not being high all the time. The model, as described by Gene Simmons (who grew up poor and hungry in Israel, and who was likely selling a lifestyle he had enough sense not to embrace fully), is rock and roll all night and party every day.
But Elvis died of constipation on his toilet. You can't be a bigger rock star than Elvis, or die in many worse ways. Jimi Hendrix--top guitarist of all time in most polls--died for all intents and purposes of a sleeping pill overdose he combined with strong liquor, while he was on all accounts in a depression. John Bonham--top rock drummer of all time--drank himself to death.
To state the obvious, these are not really role models for any of us. Far better to master calligraphy, or be a really good Little League coach, or any of thousands of alternatives.
Maturity is happier than immaturity. Differentiation is freedom. Childishness is bondage. These are words people need to hear.
The problem isn’t really all that hard to understand. Until people experience want, they assume that everything is, was, and always will be there. Things like money, food, shelter, cell phones, and video games. Work is optional if someone just gives you everything you want. So, why be productive if food just…happens? Why drive if you can just call Uber? Why study if all it gets you is a grade you don’t need since you’ll never have to work?
Millennials aren’t the first with this attitude. The wealthy have always been diffident about achievement. “A gentleman never knows [or bothers himself to know] the state of his finances.”
Bottom line: as long as people are indulged and never have to be responsible, why bother being “serious”? Probably looks like a boring waste of time to them.
My mother always called this “being hungry.” I’m a college educated GenXer. A lot of my friends who are considered the most “successful” career wise are the ones who had to work harder -- no family money, no genius IQ -- just people who were hungry to do better or prove people wrong.
Part of the problem is that the Hippies demanded freedom from responsibility: "Turn on, tune in, drop out." It didn't help that their Greatest Gen parents tried to give them "the childhood they'd never had." In short, childhood was elevated to the ideal state.
But they wanted rights along with their childhood. Rights that historically were given only to adults, in a rights=responsibilities equation that made growing up worth doing.
When you get all those rights without bothering to grow up first, why grow up at all? And why not give younger and younger children the same rights?
This is the societal disaster that has been created.
I like this. As I grow older and hopefully more mature, I find more value in liberty over freedom. Liberty is freedom and responsibility (as someone else define in an earlier comment). If we sell only freedom, I think we will get chaos.
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
I am reminded of former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris from the Netflix special "The Social Dilemma." (the irony of pairing "Google" with "ethicist" is not lost). Harris has quoted the late E.O. Wilson (biologist/researcher/two-time Pulitzer winner) about our current state. Wilson said ...
"We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall."
It does seem like the developing brain (emotions) is incapable of handling its own creation (technology), and we are ill-prepared (institutions) to help catch up. It seems to me young peoples' reality lies within their phones, and the ramifications are profound. It is evident now, with ever-increasing diagnoses of social pathologies -- depression, anxiety, gender confusion, etc.
Kids are checking out. And they are checking out earlier and earlier. This piece provides a salient view of that ... delayed adolescence, declining social connections (falling birth and marriage rates), culture wars. Like others here, I don't have an answer. What can one say? "Follow your dreams" when those dreams have fallen into the abyss of social media?
There is a bunch of social science that resulted om E.O. Wilson's brilliant work, including Iain McGilchrist's latest two volume, 1,500 page book on brain science and evolutionary psychology.
Near the end of the PBS (USA public TV) documentary on his work, Wilson states that "the human species is dysfunctional", for the reasons he stated in the quote you provided.
But humans have a very "plastic" cognitive system, adaptable to change, and there are already people proposing how to adapt to the present crisis on the basis of brain science:
Corruption is ageless. And sexless. Bernie Madoff wore a suit and tie, SBK shlubby socks. Elizabeth Holman a black turtleneck. All were or are rotten to the core. Fortunately, they got caught. There’s a host of equally vile people, some prominent, others slithering behind the scenes, tempting all of us with wealth, health, and popularity. Narcissicists appealing to their kindred spirits that lurk in all our souls.
Katherine Boyle is right. We need to grow up. And, by all means, let’s pass the baton of leadership. But be careful what you wish for. Our founders were youngsters who knew when and how to exit the stage gracefully. By the same token, they valued the wisdom of age and experience, which might explain why they called upon Benjamin Franklin, then 70, in the drafting of the Declaration, and then again (at age 81) for the Constitution. Don’t put us geezers on the ice floe yet.
Who’s the culprit in all of this? Ultimately, we are. We’ve created a public school system that has jettisoned values education and character formation for self-centered social emotional learning and mindfulness. We need national instruction in how to say no, and a seminar on respect in all its manifestations for others.
We also need to put the reins back on our government, an institution that underwrites the absolute worst aspects of our natures.
Those founders, young and old, understood a government’s first responsibility is to protect our fundamental natural rights. Everything else is subordinate because with out those primary rights nothing else is secure. They also knew that a government allowed out of it cage will crush us.
Maybe it’s all because the parents of boomers lived through the depression and WW II and never had the luxury of a college education. They went to work at 18 and got married and had kids. So they thought they wanted better for their kids, and sent them off to university so they would have white color jobs. Then these successful boomer kids did the same for their kids, except somewhere along the way universities stopped educating and switched to indoctrination and coddling. And they were living through a period of economic properity, so they got the impression things were always this way. When you don’t have to worry about running out of money before the next pay check, you can worry about whether your kids are safe playing at the park. Your kids don’t have to babysit and have a paper route after school to have pocket money. And now? I hate to write this but it seems like tough times are what are needed to retrain the minds of kids.
My thoughts exactly. Good intentions for sure. But, the economy and our institutions changed. Social media also adds to the pressure of raising ‘perfect’ kids according to the ‘crowd’. Hopefully we can return to the basics that create happy and purposeful lives and a mature populace.
academia had a bad growth model based on the GI Bill after WW2 that failed by the early 1970s. then 1980s/90s neoliberalism destroyed the bad growth model, and didn't replace it with anything better.
bad economics led to a spiral of endless organizational dysfunction.
It's difficult to take seriously an essay that starts off quoting the execrable, comical and toweringly unserious Andrew Ross Sorkin (3 names????) of the equally unserious and comical NY Times and CNBC. And, yes, we do remember the CNBC dolts fawning over the Fried Bankman.
A serious nation? A serious nation would not have elected a cognitively impaired Joe Biden who was never more than a mediocre and corrupt Senator for decades. And who is even more of a joke as president, with an unserious press asking him moronic questions as he lurches from lie to lie, crisis to crisis. With a cabinet of jokers and buffoons and an admiral in a dress. Don't want a senate masquerading as a rest home with depends-wearing human turnips? Try term limits. And John Fetterman???? Would a serious nation have elected a Shrek lookalike who makes Caligula's horse seem like an ideal Senator in comparison. When a self-righteous Democrat fulminates about the regrettable Mr. Trump, simply point out that he was judged better than the screeching harridan they wanted to crown and was removed in favor of a senile imbecile who's in the pocket of our enemies.
Joe Biden wasn't elected. I don't think Fetterman was either.
What serious nation would be anything but outraged at the patent and open election frauds being committed? As many have commented, even honest Democrats should be outraged.
I think we have to be careful about the election fraud thing. Clearly the dark money, the media in the tank for Democrats, the tech/FBI censoring operation and election law violations are deeply troubling. As to outright fraud, although there is some evidence, we don't have any concrete proof that the election was "stolen." The over-reach, including the unproven claims by Rudy and Sydney Powell made us look foolish. Not to mention the mad caper by Eastman.
It may be as simple as defining what "fraud" actually is in the context of an election. We face a definitional challenge, as with many things in our cultural analysis, whereby we equate "fraud" with "illegal." The definition of fraud begins with "wrongful OR criminal..." We say there can't have been fraud because "no one was convicted," or "the lawsuits were thrown out." But that only means the specific courts in question did not find criminal behavior, clearly attributable to an individual, and punishable within the legal means available to them. It does NOT mean they did not find fraud.
There has been fraud in every election ever ("wrongful" behavior if we judged by the purest of moral standards - a host of The View admitted on air to filling out her son's ballot for him - this is "wrongful" by the specific letter of the definition - but as long as the child doesn't press charges, it isn't "criminal" in nature). And therein lies the issue. Every politician knows this difference. They know that ballot stuffing and ballot harvesting are "wrongful," but they also know that in many states they aren't illegal, and therefore who cares. Almost everything about modern day politics is "wrongful," insider trading anyone?
My long, meandering point, I suppose, is that the issue with calling our elections fraudulent isn't that that statement is inaccurate, watch the Kari Lake trial and it is impossible to believe there was no "wrongdoing," it's that, like many things, we are a dumb people and can't separate the wrongdoing (which we should all be very offended by) from the "illegal," which we should look to change, but won't, because, by definition, the people in power know these legal loopholes benefit them.
You know why we'll never have a flat consumption tax in this country? Because it would actually tax the rich - and those in power would never allow that...
Your post wasn't meandering, at all. It was insightful. And spot on. Remember that John Adams remarked that our Constitution was only fit for a moral people. We need to demand that of our elected leaders. Case in point - Santos from Long Island. No Republican should be defending him; certainly not with the argument that Democrats lie, too. He needs to go. Why? Because if you live in his district, he represents you. Is this who you want representing you? Your answer will literally define the fate of our nation.
Since this Santos debacle began, I've wondered WTF vetted this guy? Did anyone check his resume? Did anyone see if he was who he said he was? Didn't anyone make sure?
My other questions: Did the people changed with the task of vetting him lose their jobs, and if not, why not?
And we wonder why we're f**ked
Oy gevalt!
Why should any of us be surprised? Politics has always been this way.
At least with term limits, we will rotate the corrupt every few years and we will no longer be governed by the living dead (Think Nancy Pelosi and Diana Feinstein).
Santos is the perfect guy for these days. Together with the “election fraud” obsessions on the right, he’s the counterweight to the left’s woke madness, showing how deep and generalized the rot is in the mind of Americans. It would be so convenient to just blame one side, instead of realizing it’s a way of thinking, a new American “culture”.
Who would be in charge of screening or vetting him? The government? Please consider the implications of that. The Republican party? They don't "vet" candidates. Anyone can run who pays the filing fee and meets the residency requirement (and certain other requirements for some positions, age for example). This is on the citizens of Santos' district. Someone should have opposed him in the primary, dug into his background and brought his indiscretions to light. Personally I think that is true of Biden as well. Of course he has obstructed that at every point along with his protection details in the DOJ and press.
"the people charged with vetting him"??? WTF do you think that is? Guess what, its the voters. There is no office of candidate integrity and honesty. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are proof of that truth.
short answer: yes. his Republican opponent (incumbent?) pointed out a bunch of red flags during the campaign.
there are probably a bunch of youtube videos, possible content on "NewsNation" (WGN), maybe Leland Vittert.
"We say there can't have been fraud because 'no one was convicted,' or 'the lawsuits were thrown out.' But that only means the specific courts in question did not find criminal behavior..."
Seems important to recognize that in the context of 2020 election lawsuits, the evidence wasn't even heard in the vast majority of them. Nearly all were dismissed at the outset on procedural grounds, prior to any evidence being presented. The judicial doctrines of "standing" and "laches" were used by court after court to toss the hot potato before it could burn.
Very true. And begs the question who has standing when a national election is hijacked?
and begs the question when paranoid conspiratards completely pollute the narrative with their insanity, will anyone SANE care?
answer: no
And as others have more or less said, without investigation it will not be found.
Completely agree, and you're very right, that is important context. There should be a civil court context against which to take a woeful negligence case to court whereby election malpractice had a direct impact on the lives of those afflicted, but the only judges who'd be willing to hear that case exist in states that have practical election laws. It really is the vicious cycle of an empire in decline - only the empire is individual states. I think we are very close to election law discrepancies being the straw that actually breaks the camels back as relates to secession ... Texas is very close to having the economic freedom to actually push this, should they chose too, especially if they can get the other gulf states to move in lock step. a VERY interesting negotiation would follow regarding legal statues on election if the gulf states threatened to remove major ports from the national economy over "taxation without representation" clauses ...
Anyway, sorry, your point is very important :)
Do not forget that a very significant case is pending in the Supreme Court regarding the power of the state legislature in regard to elections.
that the "evidence" was going to be presented by the same lunatics that could not come up with a coherent, legitimate legal framework is utterly meaningless.
ASTROTURF b0t script nonsense
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https://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/45197-im-convinced-that-the-whole-national-review-is-a-cia-operation-murray-rothbard
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
There were many different claims brought by different people under different laws in many different jurisdictions. It sounds like you're lumping them all together under Sydney Powell & Co. I get your disdain for the so-called "Kraken" cases, but though they monopolized the media sphere, they weren't the only or most compelling claims.
And I don't mean to be dense, but I'm not sure what point you're making with the Burris piece...
I'm a Herry Brown fan myself.
I watched parts of the Kari Lake trial and it was obvious there was organized fraud in Miracopa County. This issue really has to be addressed or you are going to have serious civil unrest.
I live here. There was no organized fraud, and there is going to be no civil unrest over Lake's loss, serious or otherwise. Lake's loss was self-inflicted. She forgot that you can be Nutbar McCrazy in the GOP primary and win, but you have to shift to reasonable in the general. She didn't, and too many voters assumed she would govern as she campaigned: shrill, caustic, and waging endless culture wars instead of, for example, working on boring but crucial water issues. We dumped her, no fraud, just votes.
What you said just proves in politics, we need more highwire acts. We already have to many clowns.
A few sociological and biological elements of the "election denier" subculture:
1. the Trump base was Celtic (and Border Reiver) appalachians, a clannish gene pool and social form based on honor systems and fealty oaths that originated as a historically marginalized population that has been holding grudges for at least 500 years, most recently neoconfederates that have been festering in resentment since the Civil War.
2. because that base is a cultural minority that will never be able to dominate US politics, there is a massive level of cognitive dissonance, which creates a need for emotive narratives that are a balm to the wounded "pagan" psyche.
Election denialism is the main form of balm at the moment.
It is not RATIONAL or OBJECTIVE because cold, systematic logic and fact-based arguments are not capable of being emotional balms (on the contrary).
The purpose of election denialism is to focus the outrage that arises from the political impotence of the celtic-appalachian and other rural-working-class-populist gene pools.
https://medium.com/s/balkanized-america/the-11-nations-of-america-as-told-by-dna-f283d4c58483
None of that would be of much importance except that the mainstream culture is disintegrating due to technology disruption, like the Roman empire collapsing, so the "barbarians" sense an opportunity to crash the gates of the weakened empire.
In other words, the increasing ILLIBERALISM, dysfunction and irrationalism of the "establishment" and the "woke left" is a magnet pulling the "barbarians" toward the gates.
you should address you paranoid conspiratard narrative
The New Mexico terrorist and election-denier should teach you something, but probably won't.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
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https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/11974899
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I agree with your point about the terminology. The problem at this point in time is that relief from a "fraudulent" election requires proof of criminal wrongdoing. Therefore, I think to continue to decry election "fraud" empowers the gullible and easily led followers of those who really did IMO engage in immoral conduct during the election. Unfortunately those followers vote.
We empowered a Special Prosecutor to investigate charges that the FBI knew at the OUTSET were fraudulent, for the simple reason that the Left was screaming and Trump--who authorized this witch hunt in the naive hope that his patent innocence would mean exoneration and silence--thought it expedient.
Where have any of these charges been truly examined anywhere? In Arizona, where they did the only real audit, much information was withheld from the investigators and they STILL found 200,000 ballots lacking chain of custody. Literally every one of those could have been fraudulent, and most of them likely were. They were added after the cutoff.
No one questioning the elections in 2020 or 2022 needs to back off, nor should they, for the OBVIOUS reason that IF CHEATING IS HAPPENING AND IT CONTINUES THEN WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A ONE PARTY SYSTEM.
It's that simple. If your opponent is cheating, then reworking your message won't help. Appealing to new voters won't help. Nothing makes any difference, because it is no longer a question of asking voters what they want. A small elite determines who the winners are, and those winners have to be corrupt to be invited to the party.
The stakes cannot be overstated.
Barry Cooper
I think that the election was stolen as a result of overwhelming fraud. But there are very valid reasons for backing off. It is not only a waste of time, it is counterproductive. Nothing can be done about the 2020 election. All legal remedies were exhausted prior to 1/6/21.
I have no issue with ordinary citizens continuing to discuss the issue but GOP candidates should avoid it like the plague as it makes it less likely that they will be elected.
Starting at the end of your comment I agree about the small group (apparently).controlling things. Prior to the drop of the Twitter Files I would have questioned my own sanity about this but no more. I absolutely trust my, and your, instincts. I disagree that they are elite however. They are far from it. They are just power hungry souls in a world where gamesmanship is rewarded. That is what needs to change and it can only be done by passing legislation. Or the point of a gun but I do not advocate that. But on the legislative front I am not a proponent of federal control of elections. I think federal assumption of much of daily existence is the problem not the solution.
I witnessed first hand the mindset of the newest voters in my county and it is not pretty. They were on a mission ignited by Beto O'Rourke and funded by George Soros. And maybe SBF. There will be 2 more years of them in 2024. They elected a 19 year old lawn boy to be the District Clerk of a county with a rapidly growing population and all of the growing pains associated therewith. All a result of Vote Blue No Matter Who. But it WAS a legitimate election.
And I disagree that screaming "fraud" and "cheating" is a valid strategy. The opposition has trained its followers (followers as in cult-like which is my observation) in the use of buzzwords. Their followers are gullible. Using those buzzwords just makes it easier for the opposition. Read comments on this thread and you will see example of what I am talking about. They have their own buzzwords too. The resident of the Oval Office is well-versed in them but we should not blindly react thereto but rather understand the fallacy(ies) behind those buzzwords and be prepared to refute their use. The fact is that while I agree with you that there were a LOT of irregularities in the 2020 election, like the origin of covid, we will likely never know the truth because the apparatus is compromised. This true in many states (elections, even national ones, are controlled at the state level) but particularly so in Arizon where the sitting Secretary of State, charged with overseeing elections, ran for Governor.
(Rephrased)
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
'IF CHEATING IS HAPPENING AND IT CONTINUES THEN WE ARE GOING TO HAVE A ONE PARTY SYSTEM.'
Not sure, Barry. From where I sit I see the Republican Party in control (I use the word loosely) of the House of Reps. Someone had to have voted them in..
I'm talking trucks full of ballots driving in after the cutoff, all of them for Joe Biden, and observers being forced to watch either from a distance, or behind a curtain.
It's reasonable to believe the election was stolen, but this is an opinion. Trump was filling stadiums, and Joe barely campaigned, and had trouble reading his teleprompter in front of the dozens of people he could attract when he did.
But it is CATEGORICALLY UNDENIABLE that all of the hundreds of major problems should have been investigated, that signed statements should have been allowed into evidence by nearly every court to which they were brought in a dozen or more States, and that the integrity of our elections should have been taken seriously by BOTH parties.
In my view, to say otherwise is to admit intellectual incompetence. There is ample reason to mistrust our System, and the only rational conclusion to be drawn from that is that we need to reestablish the basics in order to reestablish trust; and if we fail to do that, both political violence and tyranny become both likely, and the end result of stupidity.
I do not disagree with you. But what we need is proof. Proof so overwhelming and public that it cannot be denied. I have mused here on other occasions about what America would do if such proof were provided? Would they yawn and go back to mindless distractions. Or would they take vengeance on the malefactors? Well, what would you do if someone tried to steal your liberty?
What would be the process for delivering proof without an investigation? Without doing any research, I'm going to guess that most crimes that are not investigated go unsolved.
Prosecutorial inaction is a whole different story we are watching playout. IMO the entire rule of law is at stake.
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Pooper,
Advocacy groups have been doing "investigations" for decades, They file FOIAs and that kind of thing. Look for whistleblowers. Etc.
The problem is that toxic partisan interest groups tend to infiltrate or buy out such advocacy groups, so finding credible, non-partisan sources is challenging.
You seem to be extremely ignorant and uninformed, presumably because you are a SHITPOSTING TROLL that is only interested in toxic bullshit.
Everything you say is "proof" that your narrative is toxic groupthink.
When you subsume the national myth and high-social-trust under your tribalistic ideology, you become the problem, not the solution.
What is "proof?"
I love the "who is the best basketball player of all time" debate. I'll accept two answers, Michael Jordan or Bill Russel. When people ask why my answer isn't "well, did you see how Michael flew through the air?" Or "well, Jordan was a better defender than Lebron on a possession by possession basis and his clutch time stats were better." I say "My success criteria is a simple formula - you get 1 point for a playoff win, 5 points for a playoff series win, 10 points for winning your conference and 100 for winning a championship. If you were the underdog in the series and won you multiply by 2. if you were the favorite and lost, you get deducted half the available points." In my mind, the best player ever wins when he has the better team and even wins sometimes when he doesn't. By my scoring system it's Michael Jordan or Bill Russel depending on how you adjust for differences in game count per playoffs and number of series to win a championship. Tim Duncan is next BTW. Lebron is something like 8th, badly hampered by losing multiple championships as the prohibitive betting favorite.
Why does this matter? Well, it's to illustrate we all have very different "burdens of proof" for all sorts of things in life, and "election fraud" is one of them. Today, we all use the old definition of p*rn... "I know it when I see it" when it comes to election fraud, and that's on purpose, to keep us endlessly debating and so that you can call the people who's threshold is they want an audit trail "conspiracy theorists" for claiming they want for elections what the government mandates for the financials of a four person local landscaping company.
I would make a strong argument that north of 80% of this country, if asked to define fraud, and then go investigate whether that threshold has been met, would find it has. But no one is asking them to set a threshold (on purpose), and everyone else is waiting for someone else to provide them the evidence and the answer (a la the column above - multiple generations in a row who expect to be given the answer to the test, then regurgitate it when presented with the test).
That said, I wake up hopeful because I believe we finally have the societal recourse to bring this to the forefront. If you now ignore what's happening on Twitter and quote CNN, people are talking about you behind your back. And soon will be calling you dumb to your face. And that means, very soon, you will wake up and have the answer to the test presented directly to you and burying your head in the sand will no longer be cool, and then we may actually get the structural reform we have in FL all across the country and then we'll start to see real and sustainable change.
Or I'm just naïve, but at least naïve and hopeful, which feels better than the alternative
Again, the election denier narrative is toxic and discredited by insane groupthink and ideological-partisan tribalism.
Whatever "proof" you claim to have is tainted by your bullshit narrative.
Sure, Pierce, whatever you say. Because you know everything Funny but as independent as you claim to be, you swallow the swill dished out by corporate media and the intel state as if it were gospel. Not impressed but keep talking and removing all doubt.
After the cutoff is dubious and when the cutoff depends on the laws of each state. Most likely those trucks contained "harvested" ballots. Those were the source of the video of counting being halted to allow more votes. This was legal in many states. This was what the Zuckerburg $402 million procured.
This is my issue. Ballot harvesting is legal and pretty much unregulated so you can't really argue fraud. Either the other side starts doing it or you pass legislation. I find it odd that after 2020 Republican legislators did not pass any laws in the various states where this happens to outlaw it. So the "uni-party" thing might be real.
Exactly. Aren't the states that allow it primarily Democrat controlled?
more paranoid conspiratard narrative
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Yes. And that's why elections should be conducted using methods so transparent that the losers are convinced that they lost. Even if that means relatively primative counting methods.
Agreed. Imagine if all of these patent criminal frauds had benefited Republicans. Do you think it would be other than 24/7 news? They got four years out of Russia, which THEY INVENTED. What do you think they would do with something real? A lot.
paranoid conspiratard narrative
Like some other absolutely unsufferable idiots on Bari and Matt's columns & guest columns, e.pierce is a one-trick pony without any discernable intelligence--- "paranoid conspiratard narrative" is all he's got. This is all any of them have.
Why? If I thought you were sincere I could half a dozen lines of evidence, with up to hundreds of examples of each.
And given that no serious investigations happened, by what process of logic can you conclude that evidence that was never examined doesn’t exist?
And were you also consistent enough to point out that the Russian collusion stories—which WERE investigated—proved nothing but that we have a highly politicized criminal justice system?
After the Twitter disclosures, and to a lesser extent FBs, I think a look see at the legacy media is called for.
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Agree completely. And maybe that's why every single Democrat member of the House voted for the radical Hakeem Jeffries who opposes voter IDs and actually showing up on election day. Because fair elections are garlic to the vampire Democrats. Who have been engaging in voter fraud successfully since the days of Tammany Hall.
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
The paranoid conspiratards will never be convinced by actual facts and evidence, or rational, systematic thinking. They are driven by insane, subjective, emotive narratives.
They are just mirror images of the ILLIBERAL lunatics on the "left".
Terrorist attack on election officials:
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
The fraudsters are clever, and time is on their side. Log the votes and wait for the clock to run out on inauguration day. Proof is hard to get especially when there is obstruction by the beneficiaries of the fraud.
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
I just believe my eyes now.
The temptation to putting forth a seemingly calm, reasoned - and reasonable - point of view is overwhelming. There is nothing like the attraction of being the "adult in the room" as they say these days. Unfortunately there are times when splitting the baby, saying, "Well, it's really a little of both," or there "Is some evidence, but we don't have concrete proof" just doesn't apply. Like most of the time, actually....
If you really, truly believe there was no outright fraud in the 2020 presidential election, all I can tell you is to do your homework. There is enough evidence - easily available evidence - to fill a railroad car. Testimony, affidavits sworn under penalty of perjury, demonstrations of real-time Internet-connected voting machine hacking and vote changing, offers to scan ballots for the broken fibers that would indicate whether they had been folded in order to mail them in, offers to scan and compare (by the machine itself) whether individual marks on ballots were real or just photocopies.
No, the only way to be innocent of what happened in the 2020 election is to be Willfully Ignorant - to actively avoid mountains of evidence - not evidence, actually, proof - that in a lawful regime would not only render that election null and void, but land hundreds, maybe thousands of people in prison.
Yes, all after the fact and impossible to get done before inauguration day. After that, the cry is that election deniers are a threat to democracy. It is twisted and sick, but this is what the system allows. We need a big change in how elections are conducted - voting, counting, verifying and accepting results - in short, election integrity.
My view has long been that if we subject corporations to yearly audits, why not every election? Do a spot check of 10% of the ballots, and if problems are found, a full audit. At this point, nothing less will pacify most of us; along with, of course, a FULL audit of both 2020 and 2022 in the States with obvious problems.
Sure. Of course, humanity has been holding elections for a Very Long Time, as A.A Milne might say. We know what it takes to ensure election integrity, in which case we might not need audits.
In the words of Dr. Ben Carson, brain surgeon - this ain't brain surgery. To wit: One day voting, with absentee ballots available only with a Very Good Reason, and requested ahead of time. Voter ID. No voting computers - paper ballots only. All results to be in by 11:00 the same day, or they will not be counted; simply hire enough workers FOR ONE DAY to get the job done. Votes counted under the watchful eyes of observers from all involved political parties. Absolute chain-of-custody control. The only people who could possibly want to weaken voting integrity are those who intend to cheat.
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Who does the audit? Normally its the same people that ran the election.
.... as many upvotes as possible. Unfortunately, only one. <grin>
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance." FDR. Yes, it has been a Democratic Party tactic THAT LONG at least!
Why stuff the ballot when you can scare the voter?
I sincerely believe if 100 million mail in ballots were NOT sent out, we might have had a different result. That was unprecedented in our election history. The sudden appearance of hundreds of thousands of “mail in ballots” found in the middle of the night is very suggestive of some serious problems.
Yes indeed. Democrats didn’t waste the perfectly good CoViD crisis. We need to claw back to more election integrity.
(Rephrased)
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Your comments are very rude.
Your shitty arguments and meaningless posturing are revolting and disgusting.
TROLL
Your narrative started off crazy and keeps getting worse.
You have little or no credibility because you don't even come close to the necessary standard of rational, systematic, objective, impartial and fact-based thinking.
You are lost in a toxic echo chamber with a dysfunctional groupthink narrative and poor evidence, at best.
Judges don't have time to endlessly listen to crazy people during an election cycle.
Bruce Miller
With respect I think there is overwhelming evidence of fraud. Firstly, the voting laws were illegally changed in GA and PA to enable mail- in voting (as I am sure you know election laws can only be changed by State Legislatures). Secondly, election laws were not followed in Wisconsin (mail-in ballots were sent to every voter when the law stated they could only be sent to those who requested them). Thirdly, the counting of ballots was not only not bipartisan - some Republicans were deliberately excluded in places like PA, at least (in Ontario a scrutineer from each party sits around the counting table and a ballot is not counted unless everyone agrees it is valid). Fourthly the counting was suspended in GA and MI and when it started again hours later the votes for Biden were mathematically impossible. Finally, mail-in votes were not properly vetted and no one knows how many illegal mail-in votes were counted. I have left out the issue of machine fraud and failure.
As a lawyer I know that proving fraud is a very difficult and time consuming process. It can’t be done in weeks or months. Joshua Philip at The Epoch Times had a very convincing summary not long after the election.
https://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/45197-im-convinced-that-the-whole-national-review-is-a-cia-operation-murray-rothbard
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Excellent post!
Election denier cargo cult zombies.
(Rephrased)
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Absent trials, "concrete proof" and evidence is legally meaningless. The Judicial Branch seems to want no part in all this.
Thats the problem. No honest person can demy that no meaningful investigation of hundreds of sworn eyewitness affadavits and statistically impossible results (and much rlse) ever happened.
That is beyond debate.
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
An army of psychotic idiots with enough money can hire lawyers to file a mountain of "affidavits" all day long that mean nothing.
An army of psychotic idiots can post 1,000s or 1,000,000s of troll scripts on social media that mean nothing.
An army of psychotic idiots can insist that their delusions and paranoid narratives are real, but that means nothing.
why would they buy into paranoid conspiratard narratives and completely discredit themselves?
You said “conspratard”. That is an instant disqualification.
You really don’t belong here. Most commenters onbthis site try to be SERIOUS , even if there is certainly much room for healthy disagreement.
The monotones and monochromes of the Daily Cause and their ilk finally boring you?
It is a bot.
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(duplicate)
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
Your idiocy is an instant disqualification.
Your retarded paranoia is an instant disqualification.
Your groupthink and gaslighting is an instant qualification.
Your self-referential bullshit is an instant disqualification.
I don't give a shit what you think about who "belongs" anywhere.
Weiss and her team obviously don't give a shit about curating the comments section and getting rid of B0TZ, TR0LLZ and lunatics like you, which would be required to have SERIOUS discussions.
https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/11985429
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Uncle Versey Ledbetter, on his way from the hog pen to the barn, happened by the homestead window one day, only to find three of Aunt Pet's fine apple pies cooling in the fresh air. He knew that they were meant for the ladies' club meeting, but her pies were so good that he just HAD to have a piece.
So he took out his pocket knife, and after carefully wiping the blade on his pants, cut himself a slice and bit in.
Unfortunately, just out of the oven, they were pure liquid fire. HOCCCCKKKK! he said, and spit that piece of pie right through the window, into the middle of about five of McComb, Mississippi's finest, best-dressed women, who were, of course, horrified.
Uncle Versey poked his head in the window, look around at them, and said, "You know, many a durn fool would've swallered that!
Many a durn fool replies to trolls, giving them the attention they can't get living in their mothers' basements. I, on the other hand, never swaller that. (Excuse me while I wipe the hog droppings off my blade.)
Oh, and I forgot: HT to the late Jerry Clower.
POOPER and the election denier psychos are far from being regular trolls, they are part of an active b0t scheme to destroy the country so that assholes like Alex Jones can make another $billion.
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to you preferred charity.)
Your comment is very derogatory to people who happen to believe that we have a serious election problem. Won't it be ironic if it all comes out someday? Because right now we have learned about how the government has been censoring information on social media sites such as Twitter. God knows what's been going on behind the scenes.
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
I'm offended by people that are too easily offended.
-----
replying to your comment:
https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/12019442
You are deflecting and gaslighting, as expected.
What is "serious" is the deeper loss of social trust, and inability of people to adapt to disruption by becoming anti-fragile to such disruption.
If you want to be "serious" about election problems, accept the fact that the narrative is toxic and encourages paranoid conspiratards to go deep into insane echo chambers.
Also accept that the narrative is going to be exploited for profit by vermin like Alex Jones and other conspiracy troll farm operators, "entryists", etc.
Rephrased:
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Is this a real way that real people think? If a guy with blue eyes committed a crime this one time than all people with blue eyes are forever guilty of that crime? I think I know the answer, which is terrifying. It goes something like - religious extremists, a la the modern left, actually do think this way. As the church of the left requires 100% fealty to its ever evolving list of commandments, and one of those commandments is that if you questioned election integrity at any point prior to November of 2019, you are on the "right side of history," but if you questioned it at any point post November of 2019 then you are, obviously, a terrorist.
These types of thought crimes are my favorite reminder of the spherical nature of the real political spectrum. Anarchy on top, complete and total tyranny on the bottom. Go far enough left or right and you end up at the exact same spot - the left gets there through "identity" and the right through "religion." Either way, I tell you EXACTLY what you must both think and be at all times and your job is to regurgitate any and every time you are called upon to do so.
Also - you should be very worried, because I bet that one time you thought something that this guy also thought - sky is blue, water is wet, food is good, who knows - and all of those thought crimes mean you're now just as guilty of terrorism as he is, and apparently as everyone who's ever questioned why we keep changing election practices to make it as easy to cheat as possible.
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
I’ve concluded that political extremism amounts to emotional regression; or rather emotional underdevelopment manifesting as public childishness, which includes a complete lack of self awareness, an jnability to think rationally, temper tandrums, an obsession with getting your way, and an inability to listen to or process the emotions of others.
Right next to this comment is a textbook example. There is no mind there to debate. In an adult, this literally is a clinical psychosis. A mild one, to be sure, but quite real.
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Narcissistic sociopath, "Dark Triad".
Devoid of humanity.
You just PROJECTED.
Again.
You are lost in a toxic echo chamber.
You are GROUPTHINK-PERFORMATIVE.
You have ZERO authenticity, integrity, honesty.
You are incapable of self-awareness or self-correction.
You are driven by narcissism and a need for ego gratification.
TROLL
You are resorting to some absurdly contorted bullshit, gaslighting and deflections.
Your delusions sound insane.
Your rhetorical pattern is toxic.
And that is the point:
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
It's not "my" problem. The guy is clearly a psycho who was not elected and has now been caught and charged. He doesn't enter into the local or national "election equation" at all. There are a lot of right and left 'wingnuts' in the political universe, eh? The dilemma is to identify the 'crazies' and not follow or become one of them.
The election denier narrative has a large element of psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Rephrased:
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Just to help with context how are you referring to the Bernie bro who shot Steve Scalise? I’ve long been puzzled how people like you keep count.
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
infantile drivel. you aren't serious (irony).
-----
replying to your comment:
https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/12017810
THANK YOU for proving my point: you are psychotic and lost deep within a hyper toxic echo chamber of paranoid conspiratardism and tribalistic partisanism.
You are incapable of self-examination or self-correction.
You ARE THE PROBLEM, not the solution.
Nothing you do will correct the bullshit on the left, on the contrary.
(unless your intention is to push the country toward civil war, secession, or something like that.)
-----
replying to:
https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/12017810
Gosh, who knew?
Oh stop. Respectfully please. This isn't adding meaning to the conversation. You have diverted the crux of the article to insert your political agenda.
Agreed! My goodness, I came to the comments to read thoughtful insight about the millennial generation, who i'm only slightly ahead of in age, and instead I hit a scroll hole about election malfeasance. Who has ADD here?
The conversation about the election started with the comment that a serious nation would not have elected Biden. That’s how the election came up.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
right wing botz with paranoid conspiratard narratives.
(no surprise given that BW is a zionist.)
Maybe, but he’s not wrong.
It happens often here, memento..
It’s so ironic to bring out again the Big Steal in comments to an article about “it’s time to grow up”… you should remember that “no election is fair unless I or my preferred candidate wins” was already copyrighted by Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton.
Surely facts are relevant? I think they are. There is nothing childish about pointing out hundreds of MAJOR problems, none of which received ANY hearing in ANY court of law whatever. There is nothing childish about asking that the law be followed.
Neither Stacey Abrams or Hillary ever had any facts on their side, did they? Hillary in fact MADE UP her main objection, as we now know.
Faith in the System writ large depends on faith in the people who comprise it, and I have zero faith in most of our institutions, and with good reason I could spend hours writing about, as you should know, if you have exhibited any curiosity on this topic at all.
If your “facts” received no hearing in courts, might it be because no court takes seriously accusations without proof? Oh, but sure, it’s a giant conspiracy, Republican officials overseeing the elections are in, Bill Barr is in, Trump-appointed judges are in. Textbook loony conspiracy theory, just what America can’t get enough of (have you ever heard of “voter suppression” on the other side?).
And I would ask, where in this world do proofs PRECEDE the examination of evidence?
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(duplicate)
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
Simple question: given that on my side I have hundreds of sworn eyewitness testimony, statistically impossible results (like more votes than voters), and patent massive violations (like the 200,000 ballots in Arizona lacking chain of custody in an election decided by 12,000 votes), in what respect does the quantity of EVIDENCE not vastly EXCEED that used to appoint Robert Mueller as Special Counsel?
As we ALL now know, the FBI knew at the OUTSET there was no collusion. They knew Trump did nothing wrong. Yet he spent two years disrupting Trumps life and Presidency.
Surely we are entitled to the same? You had NO evidence. We have a LOT of evidence.
I view the situation as very simple.
And you don’t REALLY believe in Democracy, do you? Or more precisely accountable elected representatives who are kept honest by honest elections? You just want your side to WIN. Nothing more. You don’t value even your own freedom, because it scared you, like a little child.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(duplicate)
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
The election denier kooks are like cargo cult zombies. Boring. Stupid. Tedious. Pointless. Futile.
Grievance grifters.
Tribalists.
[replying to:
https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/11992144 ]
That was a profoundly unserious and infantile comment.
the fact is that paranoid conspiratard narratives are going viral due to deeper forms of social dis-integration (loss of social trust) that neither the (mainstream/establishment) "left" or "right" understand how to solve.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
"Barry Pooper" and other insane entryists now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
Genuinely funny!! I laughed heartily. I dont think I’ve been called that since I had recess on the playground at lunch.
It usually morphed to Super Dooper Pooper Scooper, aince thats how the minds of 5th grade boys work.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
GASLIGHTING. DEFLECTION. BULLSHIT. AS. EXPECTED.
three words mail in ballots
have you actually studied the history of election emergencies due to epidemics, wars, etc.?
Would that be the most recent "epidemic" that was of a piece with two previous flu outbreaks in the 1950s and 1960s, which saw no election changes or economic crises? Or the virus we were told could not possibly have been the result of genetic engineering (while evading the matter of gain of function)? Or about which Fauci swore China was being fully "transparent?"
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
You didn't answer the question. Have election emergencies in the past caused changes to election procedures?
Also:
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico is going to further undermine the public appeal of election denier narratives.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier. If not, I'll send $50 to your preferred charity.)
Pierce, you've been shrieking about this "terrorist attack" all day. All one has to do is read the article cited to find out that the hapless idiot hurt nobody and was caught quickly. Some "terrorist." The fact that one guy claimed his election was stolen, when he got only about 1/4 of the vote, hardly is a major event. Stacey Abrams is as much of a terrorist denier as is this sad sack. Plus most people are not "deniers" but point to the myriad problems in 2020 and raise questions. After all, if the Dems would stoop so low as to invent the Russian collusion hoax, would they really not try to steal an election?
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
paranoid conspiratard narrative
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
Pooper,
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Joe Biden was elected. Make no mistake about that. Whether he was elected by the citizens is a totally different story. Elections are too important to be left up to mere citizens.
Bruce, I do think you, more to the point, are reiterating Katherine Boyle’s point that we AREN’T a serious nation!
Watching MSM & Social Media fawn over the Biden/Harris regime, BLM, CRT, Hunter’s laptop, “newly discovered classified documents”etc., etc., etc. reminds me of the children’s fable “The Emperor’s New Clothes”
Nothing to see here … move on!
I agree with most of your comment HD but the author's point, in this article, was not that WE are not a serious nation but rather that her generations are prohibited from being so by my generation. Because we won't just move aside for them. Personally I believe that it is the votes of primarily her generations which have created the problems you describe.
It is the votes of her generation that have caused the problems.
Why do they vote that way ?
the pertinent history:
(jargon warning)
https://meaningness.com/meaningness-history
-----
( replying to: https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/11995250 )
They are conditioned and brainwashed by various kinds of propaganda and are stuck in echo chambers that reinforce their confirmation biases.
They lack critical thinking skills and are heavily influenced by subjective-emotive narratives.
They lack the ability to use systems theory and conventional rationalism.
They lack the capacity to analyze data and interpretive narratives from a meta-narrative perspective.
-----
( replying to: https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/11995250 )
All good points, I agree.
https://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/45197-im-convinced-that-the-whole-national-review-is-a-cia-operation-murray-rothbard
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
Thank you for this. It’s unfortunate that most people will just roll their eyes and dismiss it.
That’s why we’re where we are right now.
Well written and thought out response Mr. Miller! I enjoyed reading it.
Mr. Miller should be given a column.
Thanks. But many think I should be given a laxative.
🤣🤣🤣
The most “liked” comment here is a rant chastising the author for daring to quote a NYT journalist, on a very specific issue, not because that particular idea was wrong but because who the journalist is and where he works. The concept that the same person might be right about something and very wrong about many other things doesn’t get any traction here, just as the MSM was expression horror at whatever Trump said out of principle, even if sometimes he happened to be right. It seems the right-wing audiences are just as hypocritical and prejudiced as the woke crowds. This doesn’t look good for the future of the Free Press, unfortunately.
I don't think that Team Weiss (same with Greenwald and Taibbi) is really trying to use the comments section in any meaningful way to improve peoples' thinking and get them out of their echo chambers (much less provide the therapy that some of the kooks in the comments really need).
These big substack writers are focused on what they have been doing for a long time: writing articles that provide readers with insights and new information, and building their platforms and teams to be more viable "alt" media sources.
Some comments are insightful and add value. Most are tedious, boring and repetitive. A noisy, annoying minority are incoherent and/or insane and/or stupid trolling.
Yep, they are still giving it 'their context' which will shape their further clicks more than reveal pertinent information.
Show us the actual documents or be done with your personal 'guidance'.
Nah, the Free Press is a great place for differing opinions, heck most of the subscribers would disagree with Bari on a host of topics. I’m curious though, where do you get the “right-wing” label from? That’s something a very left-wing person may say, I’d hazard a guess.
Not sure you’re aware of this, but you sound like sour grapes, as if you may secretly enjoy the demise of The Free Press. Just an observation, can’t possibly be true, can it?
Good comment. I would disagree with Bari and Nellie on a few things and that is NORMAL. I subscribe here because said wonderful ladies and most of you would completely agree with me on securing our Bill of Rights at a minimum. Frankly, that is all that matters these days(imho), everything else is downstream.
You don’t seem to grasp the difference between disagreeing with somebody because you happen to have different opinions on a particular topic, on one hand, and disagreeing with somebody not because of their particular position on an issue but because of what else they said or written on different other topics, on the other. Try to think more about it, maybe you’ll get there. Or maybe not; accusing others of things they haven’t said (“secretly enjoy the demise of The Free Press”) doesn’t bode well for an open mind.
Hahahaha, thanks for the advice. And thanks for your concern on my having an open mind, rest assured I do try. But as I tell my children, don’t open your mind so far that your brains fall out leaving you incapable of being able to spot an a** when you see one. So far they’ve taken my advice, thank goodness.
You just demonstrated the problem. Again.
You are in an echo chamber.
Andy, with respect I re-read both the article and Bruce's comment and I zeroed in on:
"Xi Jinping, Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin have little in common." I am like, really?! Talk about a disconnect. They have more in common than anyone will admit in terms of dollars negotiated with each other outside of congress.
"That we are beholden to the decisions of leaders whose worldviews were shaped by the wars, famines, and innovations of a bygone world, pre-Internet and before widespread mass education, is in part why our political culture feels so stale." It may be stale, but your current 'leaders' were not cut from wars, famines or innovations from a bygone world; Joe Biden has been in government his whole life living on your dime and has never experienced the risk you might have working to pay his benefits.
That we need real experts for these precarious times. Who are the 'experts'? You mean the ones that locked us down to 'stop' a virus? Right. There are no government experts. Period. Well, except the Navy Seal who is an expert in medical care, shooting, armaments, etc.
Proud Aunt of a Navy SEAL!
A "rant?" Gasp. Maybe. Because the truth remains that Sorkin is an unserious ass. As Joe Kernan proved by the day when I had time to kill to watch this callow clown. Who did, sadly, suck up to the fried Bankman. Birds of a feather, so to speak.
Well, you’re on fire today, Mr Miller. Unfortunately you’re not wrong in your fiery assessment. I wish you were.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
We definitely need term limits.
The election denier narrative has a large element of reactionary psychosis and mental dysfunction. It is hyper toxic, promotes insane forms of groupthink, and is now implicated in a terrorist attack.
Its legitimacy is plummeting to near zero, except in "far-right" conspiratard echo chambers (such as the Alex Jones conspiratard network, which is presumably the slimy rock that you slithered out from under).
(contrast that with legitimate, credible legal advocacy groups that have been doing research on election problems for decades.)
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
Don't hold back, Bruce. Tell us how you really feel.
BTW, I feel the same as you.
Wow! Bruce, you rock! Outstanding and serious summary. Well done.
But your second paragraph and subsequent dialogue expressly validates the article’s argument. And as far as the Andrew Ross Sorkin comments, these remarks coming from HIM further reinforces the point being made!
Bruce, I would have thought that if you wanted to go political in your response to an essay about the unseriousness of the youngest generation, you would have pointed to the perfect tie in:
The Republican thirty something lad representing the NY Third Congressional District George Santos, a know nothing, done nothing perfect example of a Gen Z doughboy who couldn't help but embrace any lie he could find. (At least he appears to have more sartorial presence than your Fried Bankman).
Isn't he emblematic of the Lightness of Being this essay describes? And, to top it off, perfectly depicting the absurdity of electing imbeciles of any age to a political position?
Good morning Lee. I posted elsewhere here about Santos. He's despicable. My point is that they are called "our representatives." If you live in his district how do you feel about being represented by a fraud and a liar? Irrespective of party.
It's not fun. I'm "represented" by Nancy Pelosi. She's a complete after thought
Here in Michigan. My representative is part of a dynasty that has been in power since 1933. John Dingell Sr. 1933 to 1955. John Dingell Jr. 1955 to 2015. Debbie Dingell 2015 to present.
My condolences.
Santos should resign immediately after Biden resigns.
Well we know Biden won't resign. But wouldn't it be nice if one party decided to stand for integrity?
Neither can or will do that.
Good morning to you!
And yes you did comment on poor George - I missed that.
You were commenting on his despicable behaviour unbecoming of a Representative, of which I agree. To me, though, it's his age and lack of any life experience that would underpin any semblance of integrity that connects him to the intent of this essay.
I don't think you can excuse his age. I went to college at a time when you were held to a code of conduct. The young men and women who attend our service academies are just 18 and are expected to conduct themselves honorably. You might excuse your child for lying when they're 5. But by 15 you expect better. Santos is 34. His depravity was baked in the cake long ago.
I saw an interview, maybe on NewsNation (WGN, Leland Vitterrt?) of the Republican primary opponent (incumbent?) and he said that he and his staff raised a number of red flags about Santos.
Interesting. That might explain why the NY State Nassau County Republican party has come out so forcefully against Santos and asking him to resign.
ya, they knew he was a giant asshole.
Can the House lawfully refuse to seat him? At minimum can he be denied committee memberships so as to ostracize him?
Brilliant
You don't have to sugarcoat it, give it to us straight. Lol.
Preach, Bruce.
Best comment by far. I 100% agree with you. I wonder if Mr Fetterman will wear his trademark shorts and hoody in the House?
https://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/45197-im-convinced-that-the-whole-national-review-is-a-cia-operation-murray-rothbard
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
Excellent post that I had never thought of. Will look into this more. "Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right."
If you recall, NRO hurled vitriol toward Trump(Old Right) from the day he came down the escalator and their corrupt minions like Pauly Ryan(wife is Leftist activist) and McConnell are still fighting him today. It is pretty amazing.
[replying to:
https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/11984692 ]
You might find this description of the conflict between factions of the ruling elites interesting:
https://attackthesystem.com/2021/12/06/curtis-yarvin-mencius-moldbug-on-tucker-carlson-today-09-08-21/
excerpt:
The Brahmins [PMC, "woke" "left"] that Yarvin claims to oppose have been empowered primarily by the rise of digital capitalism and the traditional financial establishment. Additionally, the “woke” ideology (what I call “totalitarian humanism”) that presently constitutes the
[->] self-legitimating ideological superstructure of the ruling class
is not the sole creation of the Brahmins alone. Every ideological superstructure has a materialist base and class base (which in the case of totalitarian humanism would be digital capital, the tech revolution, “financialization” of the kind that has emerged from neoliberalism, the expanded technocratic class which is the product of the wider degree of specialization and the division of labor rooted in increased technological sophistication).
Additionally, “wokeness” is rooted in the wider infrastructure of statecraft which can be traced, at the irreducible minimum, to the collusion between the Frankfurt School and the OSS during WW2, followed by the CIA’s creation of the Congress of Cultural Freedom in the 1950s. While elements of the ideological framework of totalitarian humanism may have their roots in the cultural revolution of the 1960s/1970s, in its present form “wokeness” represents a co-optation of those cultural patterns by the liberal wing of the capitalist class ( a specific strategy that was devised by Fred Dutton as far back as 1970). The insurgent sectors of the managerial class (primarily the expanded professional class and rising middle-class sectors among traditional outgroups) became the socioeconomic foundation for this co-optation, which allowed the liberal wing of capitalism to marginalize labor unions while cultivating these rising middle-class sectors as a replacement constituency for the traditional working class.
...
They are all nihilistic and narcissists because they have no risk.
They have a massive upside [incentive]: global trade, banking/finance and media-tech corporations, and very little disincentive, including basic morality.
International finance schemes are largely outside of any effective system of nation-state regulation.
Some of their veneer of false respectability was peeled away by the Panama Papers and a few other international finance scandals that disappeared from public memory pretty quickly.
web search: "London Review of books shaxson offshore"
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v33/n08/david-runciman/didn-t-they-notice
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/349506967_TAX-HAVENS_ReviewEssay_of_TREASURE_ISLANDS_%27Uncovering_the_Damage_of_OFFSHORE_BANKING_TAX_HAVENS%27_by_Nicholas_SHAXSON_2011
Meh. As a late (1958) Boomer, I grow tired of articles whining about generational differences. We all want to live comfortably and see our children do better than we did.
What I do see as a crime against the current 18 to 30 generation was feeding them the BS that the only way to get ahead is by being indoctrinated (rather than educated) at college and to voluntarily take on debt along the way. Then, we add insult to injury by telling them that they really don't need to honor their promises and can instead foist their obligations onto those of us who paid our debts or the 60% of Americans who did not attend college, but did not voluntarily take on the debts of deadbeats. I cannot think of a worse set of values to instill in our young.
And, Charles, as a GenX, I get tired of being ignored. Umm, hello? There’s a bunch of 40/50 somethings that can’t get power away from the old farts either. Most GenX are tough, no bs, call it like we see it. We were latchkey kids and were out at night with no phones.
If wresting power away from the old farts is your game, then have you tried working campaigns and getting involved in primary elections? Have you lobbied your state leaders for change? My boys are 39 and 36 - both always vote and my youngest has attended Lobby Day at the Virginia House of Delegates with me. Because I don't know you, I'm not including you when I say that too many complain about who's in charge, but can't be bothered to get involved or even vote.
The thing about us Gen-Xers is that we learned early in life that the Boomers had spoiled everything before we had a chance to get to it. The behavior of the Boomers led to societal changes that hit us long before they ever hit the Millennials. We--not the Millennials--were the first generation that had it worse than our parents did.
As a consequence, I think many of us have been resigned to political helplessness for a long time. There just aren't enough of us for anyone to care about our votes. And most of us have been struggling too hard to put food on the table to expend energy on a fight that we are unlikely to win.
Celia, I'm curious what you think was taken from you. My 39 year old worked his way through college to become an electrical contractor and has a 4 bedroom house in a gated community. My 36 year old used his G.I. Bill to help pay for his Criminal Justice degree from GMU and he too has a 4 bedroom house (though not in a gated community). Both of them earned what they have faster than I did.
My husband and I are both 56. His father was a country veterinarian. Mine was a union steel worker. We both had middle-class lifestyles growing up.
We ourselves have spent all our adult lives in the working poor class until recently, and we're still not quite middle-class. Well-paying jobs have always been difficult to find. Returning to college and finishing our degrees in our 30s did not change anything...except saddling us with outrageous levels of student debt.
Celia, I am sorry that things have not gone well for you. I was taking college courses with University of Maryland, Asian Division on Okinawa, but I decided that my true love is software development, so I dropped out of college and started taking training courses in programming to get certified by IBM and later by Microsoft. It turns out that certs are of far greater value than a degree in the software world.
When I retired from the Marine Corps as a Gunnery Sergeant and became a professional software developer I instantly doubled my pay and it went up from there. I was fortunate enough to choose a profession that I loved and still make good money. After 23 years on active duty and another 23 years of writing code, I finally retired last year.
I will not tell you that it was all bad choices on your part because luck definitely has something to do with it. I made good choices, I moved where the money is, and I worked hard for it, but I also know that I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time and lucky that my true love also pays well. Many people follow their hearts as I did and work hard at what they love, but consequently live in near poverty for the privilege of doing what they love. My wife had a Masters in counselling and she made a third of what I did and it took us 20 years to pay off her loans.
I will however say that I do not see how your prosperity was stolen from you by my generation when opportunities abound even today. Companies are complaining that they cannot find enough qualified workers and these are largely not low paying jobs. My boys are not yet making what I did at my height, but they are both on track to exceed me before they retire.
bloated ego gratification. asshole.
[replying to:
https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/11984287
]
We are too busy working lol. Someone has to
💯
A classic from systems theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points
(early 1990s)
excerpt:
... one day I was sitting in a meeting about how to make the world work better — actually it was a meeting about how the new global trade regime, NAFTA and GATT and the World Trade Organization, is likely to make the world work worse. The more I listened, the more I began to simmer inside. “This is a HUGE NEW SYSTEM people are inventing!” I said to myself. “They haven’t the SLIGHTEST IDEA how this complex structure will behave,” myself said back to me. “It’s almost certainly an example of cranking the system in the wrong direction — it’s aimed at growth, growth at any price!! And the control measures these nice, liberal folks are talking about to combat it — small parameter adjustments, weak negative feedback loops — are PUNY!!!”
Suddenly, without quite knowing what was happening, I got up, marched to the flip chart, tossed over to a clean page, and wrote:
PLACES TO INTERVENE IN A SYSTEM
(in increasing order of effectiveness)
9. Constants, parameters, numbers (subsidies, taxes, standards).
8. Regulating negative feedback loops.
7. Driving positive feedback loops.
6. Material flows and nodes of material intersection.
5. Information flows.
4. The rules of the system (incentives, punishments, constraints).
3. The distribution of power over the rules of the system.
2. The goals of the system.
1. The mindset or paradigm out of which the system — its goals, power structure, rules, its culture — arises.
Everyone in the meeting blinked in surprise, including me. “That’s brilliant!” someone breathed. “Huh?” said someone else.
I realized that I had a lot of explaining to do.
...
re: helplessness
See Rabbi Michael Lerner's book "Surplus Powerlessness" (1980s) for example.
https://www.amazon.com/Surplus-Powerlessness-Psychodynamics-Psychology-Transformation/dp/1573922994
Bad social science. Boomers were subjected to well understood social conditioning, just as you were.
The "behavior" of Boomers was shaped by their conditioning, and by social, economic and technological disruption.
The "sense making" system that had been put in place prior to the 60s/WW2 failed.
A few people on the social margins understood that there were deep problems that the system could not correct, but everything was buried under an increasing avalanche of bullshit that wasn't accounted for.
You are trying to blame the 99% for the bullshit that the 1% did.
You yourself are a perfect example of the mode of failure that is the cause of the problems.
I don't see much evidence that you have even the beginning of any awareness of the 75-100 years of research and commentary that exists that attempts to understand the problem at the deeper levels.
I see no evidence that you are capable of understanding the problem beyond a ridiculously shallow level (same as most Boomers).
That is the real problem.
You are (apparently) clueless, just as most of them were clueless.
There were all sorts of people in both the WW2 and Boomer generation that warned about problems (some long before the 1960s), but the masses didn't care, the "system" didn't care, etc.
Some of that was that "Manufacturing Consent" (Chomsky) and the creation of controlled opposition on both the "right" and "left".
Here is an example:
https://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/45197-im-convinced-that-the-whole-national-review-is-a-cia-operation-murray-rothbard
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
God you are long winded!
POOPERZ
Don't you need to go back to the Alex Jones troll farm and start plotting the next terrorist attack on election officials?
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
A long winded asshole.
Do you have brain damage???
https://www.thefp.com/p/its-time-to-get-serious/comment/11989022
When the vast majority of candidates have been folk who give steaming turds a bad name standing for two parties of equal disrepute almost forever, all you recommend achieves what exactly except your further penury; exploitation; and deprivation of freedoms?
I'm paraphrasing from memory, but Robert Heinlein once said that of course the game is rigged, but you stand no chance at all if you don't play the game. Nothing will change if we all just sit around and snivel about it.
meaningless blather. you are the problem. you can't see outside your echo chamber, thus you don't believe that there is anything outside of it.
So you're just going to sit around and snivel about it?
While populism is currently being blasphemed it has always served as course correction. And while we historically have embraced a two-party system the parties themselves have changed. Personally I like to think this is what is occurring now. Wishful thinking no doubt but a girl's gotta dream.
the nation state system is disintegrating because it is not anti-fragile to disruption.
the parties are useless puppets.
cultural evolution (developing anti-fragility) will make most of the existing system irrelevant over the next several generations.
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
I do not exist in the metaworld nor will I ever do so. I am very firmly grounded. It does explain your, er, well let's just say speech pattern. Well that and being a left coast hippie functionary. I don't think our mentalities are compatible so see no point in further discourse.
Off topic, but I love your profile pic! I'm about 90% sure I know exactly where it comes from and I love that comic.
Thank you! Bill the Cat first from Bloom County and later from Outland. :-)
That's a bingo! I thought so. I have a book of collected Bloom County comics and Bill the cat always has a rough go of it. Those comics are incredibly well done.
Yup, sure have. I worked Election Day for a city council candidate, who lost. Been to a couple of fundraisers for local candidates. Written many letters over the years too. Nothing changed.
Though a boomer, I agree with you PH. Gen X has been given short shrift. Perhaps they’re uniquely positioned to guide the country forward, sandwiched between two self-important generations.
1992. Ross Perot. "Giant sucking sound".
People were told that a disaster had started. They (mostly) ignored the warnings, instead listening to utter frauds like Reagan and Clintons-Obama and now Biden the senile buffoon (who the elites look like they are going to dump, soon, and replace with a more credible puppet).
The ancient Israelites would beg to differ, and would have forgiven everyone's debt (not just students) across the board every 49 years, known as a jubilee. Regardless, the student debtors are just as much victims of this racket as the taxpayers are. Especially if they went to public colleges and universities, that really should have been free or at least affordable all along (like it was for most Boomers, and still is in some countries to this day).
College is no longer affordable because the federal government took over guaranteeing student loans, thus incentivizing raising prices at several times the rate of inflation. OTOH, while government does enforce taxation at gunpoint, nobody put a gun to those students' heads - their debt was voluntary.
Their debt was voluntary, I agree. As such, students should have been given back the right to go bankrupt and in turn have the ability to negotiate their debt - like all consumers and companies.
wrong, as usual. a massive brainwashing campaign took place by higher education.
obama took advantage of the paradigm shift toward "diversity" to rewarm cultural-leftism and make it seem inevitable that "success" in improving socioeconomic status was dependent on college.
obama was able to turn the college loan system into a tax that fed big money to the federal govt at a time that Republicans in Congress would not agree to increase taxes.
obama stabbed the working classes in the back (same as clintons). no surprise.
To Ajax: yes the rate at which college has become unattainable is insane, and this needs to be addressed prior to forgiving all debt. But free? To quote “The Princess Bride”: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
The rate needs to be accelerated so that nobody goes to college anymore.
The Jubilee reference is a bit of a cherry pick but I will agree that the cost of college for this generation compared to previous generations is outrageous and is the direct result of Boomers not having anything better to do then rape and pillage... Boomers in this context are the over-educated egg heads and Pampered, spoiled brats that hung around at rock concerts dropped acid and ran to Canada during a war instead of as the author points out growing up and getting serious themselves.
Frank, the increase in cost is directly due to the government guaranteeing loans beginning in 2010. Also, while colleges and universities used to be comprised of about 10% administrative staff, instructors and professors are now outnumbered by administrative staff.
Yes, the vast majority of Boomers tried acid, but then we grew up and very few went to Canada. The vast majority of the 59,000 American that died in Vietnam were Boomers who answered their country's call to fight in a war instigated and lead by what we now call The Greatest Generation. In short, they stepped up.
College students (and, more importantly, their parents who are largely paying the bills) demand more things which are expensive to provide. When I went to college we had a very basic gym and a choice of three fairly crappy meals in the dining hall. Today, students demand student centers with olympic pools, the latest fitness equipment, multiple dining options (vegan, vegetarian, paleo, and every kind of ethnic food under the sun). Also, my college had a psychologist on-call for emergencies but now all colleges have full-time counseling centers.
Dorm rooms used to just be cinderblocks with a bed and desk. Now they have internet, cable TV, full kitchens on each floor, etc.
It's not just student loans driving up the costs, but a desire for a more upscale experience. And the sad thing to me, when I went to visit my alma mater, was that, on Friday night, everyone was just sitting in their rooms watching streaming videos or texting vs. socializing and forming the connections that will be able to help and support them in adulthood.
Charles you are correct that the endless streams of government liquidity make it possible to increase cost exponentially. I would argue that your next point is precisely why those costs increased. The over-educated Boomer elite who were tired of dropping acid and indeed did grow up and go to school needed jobs and so therefore they created an elaborate administrative system for themselves. This General pattern of the boomer generation raping and pillaging as I said can be found in every field of endeavor especially in the financialization of everything in this country and in the west. You are correct that the call was answered by the boomer generation as well as the entire country being built in the factories of the boomer generation however I am careful to differentiate the over-educated elite of the East and West Coast with the remainder of Boomers who have held this country together with their blood and sweat... And yes many times my comments are hyperbolic ..
I am a Boomer and I do not know ONE who engaged in that behavior. The ones you describe are the ones who begat the current generation. SBFs parents for example. I am guessing you can find a lot of them at Sta-a-a-hnford. They really need to learn how to cast an educated ballot.
1992. Ross Perot. "Giant sucking sound".
People were warned, they ignored the warning.
They were idiots then, just like you are an idiot now.
Brainwashed idiocy.
https://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/45197-im-convinced-that-the-whole-national-review-is-a-cia-operation-murray-rothbard
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Print
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
Did ancient Israelites college education include $18M per year for wages and benefits paid to DEI staff? As a Boomer, we didn't have DEI staff, luxury housing, haute cuisine, state of the art recreation facilities, multi-million dollar athletic stadiums... All of these amenities are required post-Boomer and have absolutely nothing to do with a college education.
I would ask who is in power and position to make the sweeping changes? Who are those in power? Who are those hiring the DEI ...hell, who came up with the whole philosophy in the first place? and also the other Army of administrators? I think the answer in all of these questions including who created a financial aid guaranteed by the government would be the Boomer generation.
Either way, don't blame it on the students. They were not the ones who created this mess.
100% and it doesn't make a damn bit of difference so those whiny self-indulgent b****** need to step up to the plate or the whole world's going to go down the drain.😉
stupid
I think the debt the ancient Israelites is far different than debt today. I think today's debt stems from failure to appreciate how destructive spiritually debt can be. And it is true that education costs were less for Boomers although I don't know if that is true once adjusted for inflation. What I do know is that if we do not reckon with debt, personally and as a nation, and get our monetary policy under control a lot of dystopian science fiction is going to come true.
You are correct that it is different today. The debt racket is actually WORSE and even more usurious than it was back then. So a jubilee would apply *a fortiori* to the modern day.
How do you feel about the proposed debt forgiveness in SF, coupled with a lump sum payment and annual payments for more years than any of us will live? How do you feel about the US defaulting on that $32 trillion debt?
I actually have no problem with it, despite not having any dog directly the fight as I currently have no debt of my own. But the massive debt overhang weighs down the entire economy, so actually we all have a dog in this fight.
If Wall Street gets bailed out, so too should We the People. It's only fair.
As for defaulting on the debt, as the Donald famously said in 2016, you never have to worry about the federal government defaulting on the debt, since you can just print the money. Yes, he actually said that, and he's not wrong, even though I can't stand him myself.
(Mic drop).
I pay my bills so think others should as well. The federal debt is a time bomb that the electorate really.
needs to educate itself about. I am not a fan of Wall Street. Or bailouts of industry. Too big to fail makes a mockery of us all. Federal monetary is a joke and has been for over a century now.
College was affordable when students had to work hard to gain admission, did not want to pay for elaborate perks or gourmet cafeteria food or luxury apartments instead of dorm rooms. I took out loans, worked a co-op job, sought out scholarships, and valued my hard-earned degrees. So did prospective employers who needed the skills I acquired.
College was affordable before legislatures drastically reduced funding under the influence of neoliberal economics (which Carter cracked the door to, and which Reagan then threw the door open to, followed by Clintons-Obama-Biden).
Bloated education administration was driven by the availability of funny money, which was a product of neoliberalism.
Ignorance, like your, is the real problem.
Free for Boomers? Where? This Boomer worked minimum age, walked miles to and from work, saved enough money to attend college and did. Nothing was handed to me. It is maddening to be blamed for the woes of the state of the country. Not everyone grew up like a Kennedy.
Damn right.
Amen, sister.
CUNY schools were free until the 1970s, and SUNY schools were not free, but were much cheaper even after after adjusting for inflation.
No school is free. Someone had to pay for it and I'm betting that it wasn't the people who benefitted from it.
News flash: in a civilized society, we all subsidize each other to one degree or another throughout the lifecycle. That's exactly why K-12 is free to students and paid for by taxpayers, so why not college as well? And we all benefit from a more educated population. Other countries understand that, and yet a subset of Americans have a king-sized chip on their shoulders about that for some reason.
You have a point - on the top of your head! Why not free grad school, medical school, law school or dental school? How far do we go in subsidizing the elite educated class? And for those of us who paid for our own education, then paid for our children's education, we are now asked to pay for everyone's education. When you get something for free, you value it less. Work for anything and you value it more. It was your limited time, part of your one and only life, that went into getting what you bought for yourself. That is how you make better decisions - when you have your own skin in the game.
News flash: if the schools actually educated, I might agree with you. Unfortunately, colleges and universities today are cranking out poorly educated, but highly indoctrinated drains on society.
It’s very handy to cite as an example Ancient Israelites and their debt forgiveness, and you’re not wrong. But if you’ve looked lately most students are taught to hate Israel.
Israel is festering cesspool of psychotic warmongers of the kind that Jeremiah warned about. You don't even follow your own religion, which isn't a surprise.
Nothing is ever “free”.
TANSTAAFL
The bible is almost entirely fictional; there is not a shred of truth in it; nothing at all that stands up to historical or archaeological investigation except as colouring.
Have you ever seriously studied the Bible, all 66 books, written by various authors down through millennia? It’s filled with every kind of literary form; prose, poetry, wisdom, law, prophecy, song, history, to name a few. It has every type of literary device; chiasm, alliteration, acrostic, allusion, anthropomorphism, hyperbole, idiom, metonymy, paradox, I could go on but the list is very long. It’s embedded with science, archeology, geography, astronomy, etc.
So well done you if you have such great insight that trumps thousands of scholars down through the ages who’ve studied it, that you can be so dismissive of this book that tells of the human story.
By the way, since we as humans live our lives based on stories told, what story do you have to replace the, in your opinion, “fictional” Bible?
You admitted in a comment further down that you are just a troll. Yet you make idiotic comments about "serious" study of the bible? lolololololololol
you are severely delusional and apparently don't understand much about "science".
ancient mythic cultures didn't have much science.
the most scientific-rational cultures had strong traditions that rejected, for at least short periods of time, the superstitions in the Bible and other mythic texts/traditions.
the Enlightenment (1700s, classical liberalism) is rooted more in "pagan" rationalism than superstitious texts from the middle east.
Perhaps Charles the reason we fed them the BS to become 'indoctrinated' is because we who went to university forty to fifty years ago actually had a worthwhile experience and learned things, especially other viewpoints and ways of thinking.
I think it has come as a surprise to millions of Americans these past number of years to see how our university system has been so cowed to a uniformity of thought, to censorship of the outlier and the free thinker, and the acceptance and even the elevation of the mediocre in talent and excellence.
I agree. But, as you are on the other side on the other side of the political divide, how do you think that happened?
The progressive wing of the Democratic Party has had a huge influence, no doubt about that. But it's worthwhile to note that far left progressivism has been around for decades, usually outside the Democratic Party, and always lurking around campuses, inculcating. I think at around the time of the Occupy movement and in earlier manifestations of anti corporate activism in the late '90s, this brand of a Far Left was slowly incorporated in the Democratic Party, helped along by, of course, Bernie Sanders.
A so called Big Tent party, mainstream Dems thought they could control it all - but wrong they were (not unlike the GOP and the Tea Party and the Freedom Caucus..).
Just my opinion..
I value your opinion.
And I value yours..
So to be clear, you are blaming the "progressive wing of the Democratic Party" for the totalitarianism, intellectual fraudulence and Orwellian conformity that is inherent to the "woke" faux religion?
Not corrupt media-tech oligarchs, not the global financiers that fund the "progressives"? Not the unholy alliance of the Democratic party with the military-industrial-complex?
lololololol
I'm not saying they weren't funded. Of course they were and still are. But there has to be a movement to fund first. Intellectual fraudulence is putting it mildly, it goes hand in hand with the conformity you mention. Totally in agreement there - since it all leads to the consensual censorship on campus faculties and student bodies alike, which is where this conversation first started.
And I did say influence - the 'blame' can go to the larger modern progressive movement that's been around for at least forty years, and in my opinion largely outside the Democratic Party for the most part, until now.
Re the military industrial complex, I think both parties have enjoyed the mutual trough feeding experience enough to be equally culpable from the heady days of Truman.
The Tea Parties were originally PURE ASTROTURF.
Torched by political napalm.
Libertarians were stabbed in the back over and over and over for decades by corrupt "right wing" neolib/neocon billionaire think tanks (some of which were CIA "controlled opposition").
The Koch Bros created the "movement" per se, but it drew from long simmering populist resentment going back to neoconfederate subculture, and marginalized border reivers and celts at least 500 years ago.
web search: "colin woodard 11 nations dna"
Fellow '58 here. The college thing is my biggest regret. Well actually public school and the college thing. I was hoidwinked.
So your thinking has been flawed for a long time.
😴
Neoliberalism ensured that the empty, hollow, meaningless posturing of corrupt educational bureaucrats would be exploited to screw over college students and society in general, on the assumption that college bureaucracies would stay the same as they were after WW2 when the great expansion of education happened.
In reality the growth model of conveyor-belt education was in crisis by the early 1970s (Eric Weinstein), and the only thing that has been done since then is to add layer after layer of band-aids to a gaping, gangrenous wound.
The public and legislatures that fund public higher education prefer their delusions to reality.
Fixing (burning down dysfunctional educational administration) education is too hard, and frankly above the pay grade of most of the political elites. They are completely incompetent.
Education policy is political quicksand.
RT, I have no more love of the banking system than you do. Wilson should have been hung for what he did to this country. OTOH, the federal government began guaranteeing student loans in 2010 and regardless of how much interest the banks have collected over the years, it means that all loans guaranteed by the government that are defaulted on, or forgiven, will be paid off by the taxpayer. This is unfair to those of us who paid our loans and even more unfair to the 60% of Americans who never voluntarily entered into student debt in the first place.
RT, I share your anger, but I don't think the government will default on it's loan guarantees.
I feel this. I’m 51 and still paying off student loan debt. It’s the compound interest that gets people. Paying interest on interest when your loans are in forbearance almost guarantees you’ll never get them paid off.
I liked this. At age 30, I am expecting my first child. Own my home with my wife (28). Working to build a family business. And I just roll my eyes at a lot of my friends and peers living it up at Burning Man for the 5th year in a row or bar hopping still. Yet they think we’re the lame ones lol.
You are obviously not the lame one, Anthony. But neither, necessarily are they. If someone finds a mate at the age of forty or fifty, has a child, buys a house at that time and starts to look at life differently - all of which occurred after years of doing the opposite of you - that doesn't mean it's any less valid. I did it that way. And in many cases I saw friends who married in their twenties divorce in acrimony years later, divide their assets in pain and lose time with their kids.
Doing it young does not make it any better. You make the move when you're ready for the consequences, when your awareness of all that the decision entails means you'll get it right.
Maybe it takes a few years of Burning Man or hiking in Europe or having numerous relationships to get there for some of us..
Good for you !
I have some friends who kids behave as you speak.
By the time they are 30, they are light years behind economically, never to catch up.
Keep up the great work.
And when you get older you will have a nice loving family to be a part of. I know too many people who focused on career, money, freedom to “be me” and now they are in their late 30s, 40s and think they can just flick a switch and find the right person. Doesn’t work that way.
Anyway, good for you Anthony. You have it right. Wish you and your family the absolute best!
Agreed! My life has way more joy now than it ever did living that lifestyle. Thanks!
This is all true.... as a university professor for a few decades, I can say with absurdity that colleges and universities are not helping the situation...
That is so true! So many college and university administrations infantilize students. Giving in to demands for safe spaces and trigger warnings. Stanford even has a list of censored words because they might "harm" students! It's ridiculous. Bring back rigorous debate and responsibility.
The Evergreen/Weinstein fiasco made that clear, but so did the "radical left" attacks on E.O. Wilson and Napoleon Chagnon in the late 1970s.
The rot has been setting in for a long time.
This is awesome. But what now? I remember when I was in (a very liberal) college and wanted to major in public policy, my immigrant father sat me down and said “what is your trade?” You need a trade to survive, pick one. He did not believe in blind “follow your dreams”, because he knew what it takes to survive. 25 years later, I could not be more grateful. But beyond passing it on to my kids, what now?
My mother was a very similar career dream killer, “how will you pay that off??” “What if you want a family??” Was upset about it at the time but now seeing how many people spend thousands majoring in something they can’t do. Grateful for her pushback!
Haha - totally agree! My fear is that without parents or mentors like that, that valuable lesson isn’t going to spread.
I got the same from my immigrant parents. “That’s not a career it’s a hobby!” I didn’t totally listen but I tried. Every generation has its Peter pans. My 17 year old son doesn’t want responsibility or to have to grow up either. We talk regularly about finding meaning in spite of the struggles but it remains to be seen if we can instill what it takes to be an adult - and a serious one!
When my daughter (now 47, very successful & mother of 4), an only child, was 16, we often discussed college choices & her future. She’d get VERY exasperated and say, “Yes, BUT you are a realist and I am an idealist”! My response, “I pay all your bills now, so you can afford to be an idealist. Wait until you have to start paying your own way. I guarantee you’ll become a realist then”
Try taking away the wifi password and see what happens.
Anything he admires / likes? Maybe a job with them! It’s hard, but this seems like a community that might have good suggestions… 👍
Unless he’s showing a willingness to work very hard at school or in a job, and to apply himself in life, which would mean you would be right to help him him along the way, you will have to cut the apron strings as he turns 18.
It will help him to set him free to make his own way, financially and otherwise. It’s a very hard thing for a parent to do, but it’s the best thing we can do for our children. It feels cruel, yet it’s the ultimate kindness.
Kick his ass out. Give him $2000 dollars and wish him good luck. He’s your kid, you are responsible for how he turns out so stop whining.
I’m 49. I was told growing up that I just had to go to college and learn computers. I hated HS and wanted to go to the trade school for my Jr and Sr years. My parents refused, told me that’s where the burnouts and flunkys go. I joined the military my sr year bc I didn’t know what else to do. When I got out I tried college on my GI Bill and just didn’t like it. I spent my 20s working at a bicycle shop in midtown Manhattan. I rented a room in a shithole for $350/mo. Rat infested nastiness.
Age 29 I moved to rural Ohio and found my calling. I went through a apprenticeship at a manufacturing facility and became a Journeyman. Over the years I continued my education (employer paid btw) and obtained a AS degree in Electrical Engineering and Automation and Robotics.
The skilled trades have been very, very good to me. I was able to get married, but a house and raise two boys.
My wife and I are empty nesters now. We sold the house and moved to a suburb of Chicago. I’m working for myself as a “Home Maintenance Specialist” aka Handyman and I am killing it.
Of my 2 boys the oldest has followed my footsteps into manufacturing and a skilled trade. He bought a house last year. The younger is trying to “figure things out” and is currently living with his gf and her family. He works but not a skilled trade job. He spends his money on tattoos and eating out.
I’ll be curious to see how they are doing in 10 years.
The skilled trades are the way to go. I cannot say that enough. HVAC, electrical, plumbing, etc.
Todd
I'm with you 100%......except for the part where you moved to a suburb of Chicago. Ugh....get out! Come up to southern WI where you can still own a gun and criminals aren't in a no bail system.
I do like Wisconsin!
I love this. thanks for telling your story here. I agree there's a lot of stigma around learning a trade but the kids who find that path make way more money and have a lot less debt - and they're happy! I wish I had the skill to be a handyman and be able to say "I fixed that!" or "I made that!" at the end of everyday.
I agree! I work in a decently paying field but I’m still paying off my college. I went to community college but the emphasis on over education has just created more debt that I don’t make enough money to pay off anytime soon. I’ve been telling my husband our kids should go to trade school! We will always need people in trades!
I take your point, SYP. Most fathers would say that. Mine did. And yet if all kids followed that advice of not following your dreams would we have had all the music, art, theatre and literature that we've enjoyed for generations? Sometimes, just sometimes, dreams need to be followed.
The trick is in knowing which ones.
Totally agree and thought about that both then and as I wrote my post this morning :) But I’d argue if you do want to “follow your dream” just know what that entails, both good and bad, including the challenges it could introduce if there is not somebody that will pay you for it :). Eyes wide open!
Start by realizing how bad the scheme to destroy the [industrial] working classes is.
https://joelkotkin.com/the-coming-of-neo-feudalism/ *
Then look for people and groups that are fighting against that scheme.
Stop supporting people and groups that support the scheme.
-----
* excerpt:
Our society is being rapidly reduced to a feudal state, a process now being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Millions of small businesses are near extinction, millions more losing their jobs and many others stuck into the status of a property-less serfs. The big winners have been the “expert” class of the clerisy and, most of all, the tech oligarchs, who benefit as people rely more on algorithms than human relationships.
Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last seventy years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging.
The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. At the apex of the new order are two classes―a reborn clerical elite, the clerisy, which dominates the upper part of the professional ranks, universities, media and culture, and a new aristocracy led by tech oligarchs with unprecedented wealth and growing control of information.
...
There is a lot of generalization going on here. The Boomer and Gen X generations pushed college as the only way to get ahead in life and to delay getting married and having children. It worked for them. As more people went to college, it became much more competitive. You can't get into any college in my without at least at 3.8 GPA along with very high test scores and loads of extracurriculars. Well meaning parents did everything for their kids so they could focus on academics just to have a fighting chance at going to college. The kids never learned basic life skills or got a high school job but they have terrific grades!
Degrees have become less valuable overall, so we ended up with a bunch of smart Millennials with no real life skills. They need years to catch up, have loads of student debt and live with a much higher cost of living.
Generational bickering is getting old. How do we fix the problem? For me, I'm teaching my boys to work hard, no social media, and not focusing on a college degree. They will be better off with a strong work ethic first and little to no debt.
You can get into pretty much any state college by transferring from community college with good grades. The very high test scores and extracurriculars only matter if you have been duped into believing your future depends on getting into the college of your dreams, right away, as soon as you graduate high school.
my youngest son is a National Merit Scholar, top 2% of his class and did well on the SAT's. He received a partial scholarship offer from a smaller university ($22k per year). My wife was ecstatic until I pointed out that for that school with the scholarship offer it would still leave about $30k per year we would have to pay out of pocket.
State U here he comes
Your comment - "degrees have become less valuable overall" - is definitely true, but with the understanding that the key word is "overall". Some degrees are worth far more than others.
We have two kids in their 20's - both of whom did well back in their high school days, and balanced academics, athletics, activities, and part-time jobs. My son majored in Computer Engineering in college and has started a nice career with a high-tech company and makes a very nice income. My daughter majored in Accounting/Finance and has started a nice career with a government agency making a pretty nice income.
Both of them are 1000 times better off than if they had majored in Gender Studies or Art History.
My daughter got a four year BA in geology, specifically geographic information science. She has received every job she ever applied for in the field. Really good jobs.
This is great!
This is the best comment I have read today.
I'd strike the smart or make it it smart-Alec - but otherwise... 👍
I can relate to the theme of pursuing your dreams and goals while forgoing real life in your twenties. I just published a piece aptly enough entitled, "The Nomad's escape" about my time living in South East Asia (still living here).
https://theunhedgedcapitalist.substack.com/p/the-nomads-escape-life-in-south-east
As I enter my thirties I begin to see the non-reality of it all and realize that although I'm living a very "cool" life, I miss things like community, family, being a part of a nation that I belong to. Of course I don't blame anyone and my life is my own, but the message that I continually saw in college and after, was to go do fun and exciting things. Have adventures and see the world, not start a family or join a local organization.
At any rate, great piece. I enjoyed reading it.
I admire your self-awareness 👍
Haha thanks, but I don't know if it's anything that amazing. Just realizing, as I get older, that priorities are changing.
See the "meaning crisis", John Vervaeke. Also, his buddy, Jordan Hall:
https://medium.com/deep-code/understanding-the-blue-church-e4781b2bd9b5
While I agree with a lot in this piece, and have witnessed it myself as a millennial, I would say the upcoming generation is even more coddled - iGen aka Gen Z. I hear these two generations often lumped together, and there are differences that cannot be ignored. It started with Gen Y for sure, and you nailed it with the helicopter parenting, gap years, and advice to "live life" and "go find yourself," but it is worse for Gen Z. Gen Y was the last generation to have a childhood without the internet. I grew up playing outdoors, riding my bike, and being called in when it was time to eat. So did all of my friends. That is largely no more, and Gen Z had none of that, and their sensitivities and neuroses are even worse than Gen Y. They live online, have less sex, favor censorship, have more anxiety and depression, have less of a desire to start a family (as you mentioned), and are more concerned with creating their identities (aka avatars) than building their characters - like you said. If the upcoming generations have all been babied so much, what happens when they do finally step into the roles Gen X leaves behind (maybe when they're in there late 90s) and there are real, serious, international and global threats that must be faced that aren't in the form of words they don't like? Will Gen Y and Gen Z be up for the task? Or will we run in fear with our tails between our legs? So many of these young people have been victimizing themselves and fighting over who is more victimized than the other. It's absurd! It's cowardly and narcissistic - and as a member of one of these generations, I know it and I have seen it. I think the only thing that can turn the tides for these rising adults is to recognize their own weaknesses and work on building grit, facing adversity, being comfortable with disagreement, and getting over being offended. So...to grow up!
There are gap years and gap years. Spending a year (or perhaps two) between high school and college in some sort of serious job or service is likely worth it. While the extended adolescence is something to be restrained and hopefully reverted, it's still a reality that few kids today are ready upon graduation from high school to commit to the level of debt required for a college education.
Indeed, this is a big part of the dramatic decrease in cost-benefit of college education. Boomer and millennial parents push their kids to college directly out of high school, at which point they start accumulating debt before they have anything resembling a coherent plan to pay it off.
I can't tell you how many of my generation dropped out of school because of this accumulation of debt and lack of corresponding plan, and then a short few years later, when they had a more realistic trajectory in mind, remained hobbled by the debt from their previous abortive attempt.
This whole process incentivizes people into dead-end diplomas, and incentivizes schools to care more about getting new students than creating graduates.
I see a real "gap year" as something which directly contributes to developing maturity, whereas jumping right into yet another coddling institution is unlikely to provide such.
So many good points made here Marshall. I recently read that there is a surplus of History PhD's coming out of graduate schools but not enough jobs for all of them. So we are going to have a useless class of PhD's whose only skill is looking at history through a critical race sense which translates great for a job at Target. Not to mention the crippling debt.
There are some better models out there. Germany pushes students into apprenticeship and what we would traditionally call "blue collar" jobs such as plumber, HVAC, electrician are held in HIGH, HIGH regard and esteem. They have a different cultural attitude towards the highly skilled jobs and help students along a long-term, skill-building path.
Israel has mandatory 2 year military service for its graduates, and there have been models suggested in the US that would allow students to "serve" in some capacity in the US be it through military or expanded programs in AmericCorps and Teach for America.
All that aside, if it's not a government program - which I would hate more government intervention - there's just getting a stupid job as a teenager at McDonald's or Starbucks that can help build soft skills and allow a teenager to figure out how to be more responsible in the real world. I have held a job (and often two through college) since I was 14 years old and set up a bank account when I was 15. Those things alone were HUGE in setting me up for success beyond a useless college degree. So much so that when I graduated during the Great Recession, I fell back on the work I did in highschool: I went back to waitressing for awhile.
I agree with every single one of these points and I would highlight this:
"So many of these young people have been victimizing themselves and fighting over who is more victimized than the other."
I think Jonathan Haidt had an article on this recently. I am noticing it in the younger generations as well. It is a real problem, but likely one that will get worse before better.
Haidt has a great book if you haven't read it yet on this issue - the Coddling of the American Mind. I HIGHLY recommend that. Additionally, you should look into Luke Burgis' work on Rene Girard - it's about mimesis and how it controls so much of our wanting and desire as humans. He uses it to explain fads and popular culture, even politics and ideologies. Burgis' substack is Anti-Mimetic (and he wrote a book called Wanting, I believe - which I have not read yet) and lately I have been listening to many of his interviews on various podcast (Subversive, Rebel Wisdom, Daily Stoic, and The Symbolic World) about the most mimetic things people are doing right now is being the victim and playing the scapegoat and how upside down and backwards that is. It's fascinating to listen to his studies of Girard's work and I'm still not familiar enough with it to write or talk about it in-depth but it's a great rabbit hole to dive down.
Yes, a good stiff dose of reality is needed to shake them out of their drunken stupor.
Good points. It is actually more complex and "worse" than that, but there are road maps out of the quicksand of cultural disintegration. Here is one:
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
Millennial here. Stable job, married, one kid, home ownership. I’m sympathetic to the main point of the article and agree with it, but there were just so many generalizations and anecdotes. Plus there are so many positive things from the last 30 years. If anything I think on some level women have gotten more serious and men less (Richard Reeves has been on the podcast circuit and discusses this in his book Of Boys and Men). If men-children get serious in their later 30s, can you blame women for pursuing careers over kids? And I don’t think you can decouple the current attitude toward marriage with the divorce explosion of the 90s. Society has also encouraged the girl-boss over motherhood, which is less an issue of unseriousness and more an issue of priorities.
Regarding politics - definitely agree: there is something very activisty about how younger leaders operate. Getting into Congress is one more hot scene for promoting yourself on social or regular media, as opposed to getting work done, and we see it on both sides of the aisle.
In my observation boys began to be emasculated in schools in the 90s.
its the opposite. Men have stayed unserious and women have gone from serious to even more unserious than men. The amount of women i know in their early 30s who still party and travel like they are in college is at least the same if not more than the men. Women used to be the oens begging men to settle down. Now its even.
What you don’t hear from the organizations once known as news outlets is any reporting on what are the policies of the new Congress.
The actual leadership in the House of Representatives is demanding:
* an abrupt end to Pelosi’s catastrophic floor rules and the return of open debate on public policy;
* an abrupt end to Pelosi’s catastrophic fiscal policies (both her terms, 2006-2010 and 2018-2022, were the worst fiscal policies in history and directly harmed the economy) and massive cuts in government spending to reduce both Pelosi’s debt and Pelosi’s inflation;
* Term limits in Congress which would get rid of Pelosi and all the rest of the exact people the article complains about.
I want a mandatory retirement age, as opposed to term limits. This may sound silly but Mary Kay tells its most senior consultants that they must retire at 65. It makes room for the next generation to step up.
If we’re going to tell everyone over 65 they can’t work anymore, we’d better be willing to pony up a lot more financial support. We’re living longer than we used to, and growing old is expensive. That 70-year-old you see behind the cash register at the grocery store isn’t there because it’s fun.
I was only referring to Congress, not all people.
But Congress should reflect the populace. Term limits all the way.
PH, you may want to tell that to a senior who hasn't saved enough for retirement, which is around 35% of Americans. I think it's even higher than that. Seniors are driving school buses for a reason.
It's a lot lower percentage than that, or it will be.
Is your reading comprehension really that bad?
PH said:
"mandatory retirement age, as opposed to term limits"
Almost nobody gives a shit about the assholes in Congress. If most of them starved, very few people would care.
I actually agree with you, e.
I didn't see that PH was responding to Han's post on Congress and the evil Pelosi. My bad.
The main point is that term limits don't matter. With terms limits, non-elected (usually corrupt) "party bureaucrats" just get more power and control and the actual elected politicians just become more puppet-like.
Perhaps, but I think age does matter. Bureaucrats already have too much power supporting politicians who should be in nursing homes. Term limits might help in getting rid of the walking dead.
Yep. Those things, the Twitter revelation's and this slow emergence of subscription journalism as a truth based re-capture of the American national dialogue. It matters and we should take the win. It's not them--it's us--as in "..WE the people..." My resolve in '23 is to recondition myself to think of America as what it is, a Constitutional Republic based on individual liberty and the personal power and responsibility of citizenship.----The dying cockroach position never helps anyone.
re: why the USA has not existed since 1899
The original system failed by 1898, as a result the Spanish-American War.
After that the USA began to mutate into the British Empire, II (not in a good way).
https://mises.org/library/conquest-united-states-spain
The Women's Movement, and other "progressive" groups promoting moral panics, demanded moralistic imperialism, "Wilsonian internationalism".
As Henry David Thoreau pointed out long ago, big, centralized government always leads to slavery, imperialism and domestic corruption.
https://www.thoreau-online.org/civil-disobedience.html
The news outlets will not report the changes to speak of.
They are political operatives of the DNC.
I would like to think that a lack of rootedness is a big contributor to this. Modernity wants to dissolve all of our social connections and sense of place so we can be pure consumers and fill that hole with Chinese made garbage, social media, and porn that makes your life worse. Then, in a pit of 21st century existential darkness, you can finish things off with opioids and fentanyl.
And a big part of the lack of rootedness is people leaving, or having never joined, a faith community. Despite its many faults, and there are many, my Catholic school upbringing made me a permanent part of a group, with defined values and boundaries. Although I’m no longer a practicing Catholic, I am still a part of that group.
When your church's highest value is child abuse? You are just lying to yourself. I saw thru the church in catechesis when I was nine or ten and walked away from Omelas in my mid-teens. Decades later my chemistry teacher, in minor orders, was banged up for twenty-odd years of child-buggery. Between Biden and Pell Catholicism is just a very; very; sick joke.
Bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think? While still no fan of Catholicism, I would suggest you not throw the baby out with the bathwater. And, it was just an example, chill.
That would be postmodernity (postmodern social conditions).
suburban consumerism. relativism-pluralism. a tendency toward the social pathologies of narcissism and nihilism.
the economic base of postmodern values is digital capitalism and global trade-finance.
postmodern values reject the "absolutisms" of both religious myths (social order based on renunciation of evil and sin) and modern rationalism.
the industrial working classes are seen as an impediment to "progress" toward pluralistic, "planetary" culture.
I've been posting here and on my blog about the work of Murray Bowman, who saw emotional growth and what he called "differentiation" as in effect anti-insanity. As a creed, true Liberalism--I have in mind here Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and 1975 Norman Lear (not present day Norman Lear, unfortunately)--requires MATURITY. Individuation.
As Bowen described it, differentiated people are able to undertake creative tasks independently without coddling, but retain the capacity not just for health social activity, but deep and lasting friendship, and the capacity not just to tolerate but embrace and benefit from meaningful ideational and behavioral diversity.
And it's worth noting that his real work was studying clinical schizophrenia. He undertook the unusual and interesting task of asking the FAMILES of psychotic mental patients to live IN THE ASYLUM. They had their own apartments of course, but were asked to participate in group sessions several times a week, where family dynamics were observed.
It has become, I think, received wisdom that both schizophrenia and alcoholism are transmitted intergenerationally. One plausible explanation is that both are genetic. But his argument was that pathologies are transmitted intergenerationally also SOCIALLY.
Each family will have a least individuated/mature child. And since people tend to marry people of roughly their own developmental level, that least mature child will marry a least mature child from another family. That family in turn will have a least mature child, who will repeat this process. Across 3-4 generations the immaturity turns into clinical psychosis.
And here is the point he was much too conservative to make: that psychosis amounts to immaturity simply taken to the next level. Schizophrenia, on my reading of his work, is simply the emotional level of a 2 year old in a physiologically mature body. Their thinking is disordered because they are two year olds.
And he lays the groundwork for the claim that SOCIETIES can in effect become schizophrenic. Their reality testing can become distorted through unmanaged anxiety to the point they loose their ability to distinguish what is real from what is imaginary. I would argue the claim that "Trump is literally Hitler" DEFINITELY falls in this category. Dislike or distrust the man all you like: he is not freaking Hitler. Period. This is not a discussion grown ass adults should have to have with anyone over the age of 5.
But in sum, the overall differentiation of our society is declining. He talked about that too, and pointed out that adult solutions to real problems cannot be expected from immature, childish people. What can expected are patchwork solutions that feel good at the moment, and which have no real thought or plan behind them, and which reliably fail in the long term. And that in fact is what we are seeing everywhere.
I don't know what the solutions are. I have some ideas. But for now I am contenting myself to little things like this. Describing the problem accurately is a start at least. Speaking truth is always intrinsically valuable, or so I choose to believe.
I will never forget CNN hosting the laughable Drs. Bandy X Li and Allen Frances; my jaw dropping as the latter intoned that Trump had killed more people than Hitler, Stalin and Mao, combined, as Li and the witless dolt (Stelter) hosting the charade nodded along somberly. Taking such people seriously - let alone giving them a national forum - is not the mark of a serious, mature or sustainable nation.
Bruce: I agree with your politics, but your comment puts up a bit of a straw man: Brian Stelter on CNN with unserious guests should not be deemed to represent a “nation.” And CNN, with its shrunken ratings, isn’t much of a national forum; it has a niche audience at most.
Then why are you living in a failed state, a national shit-tip?
Because the legacy sense-making system, hierarchies of curated expertise, are not anti-fragile to disruption.
You probably aren't actually looking for answers that contradict your (unspoken) ideology, but here is one:
re: David Ronfeldt's TIMN model of social change
disruption -> disintegration -> regression to ideological tribalism -> reintegration at a higher level / social form
https://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/02/overview-of-social-evolution-past.html
---excerpts---
... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.
... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. Societies that first succeed at making a new combination gain advantages over competitors and attain a paramount influence over the nature of international conflict and cooperation. If a major power finds itself stymied by the effort to achieve a new combination, it risks being superseded.
... A people’s adaptability to the rise of a new form appears to depend largely on the local nature of the tribal form. It may have profound effects on what happens as the later forms get added. For example, the tribal form has unfolded differently in China and in America. Whereas the former has long revolved around extended family ties, clans, and dynasties, the latter has relied on the nuclear family, heavy immigration, and a fabric of fraternal organizations that provide quasi-kinship ties (e.g., from the open Rotary Club to the closed Ku Klux Klan). These differences at the tribal level have given unique shapes to each nation’s institutional and market forms, to their ideas about progress, and, now, to their adaptability to the rise of networked NGOs.
...
---end excerpts---
Yep.
Maybe. But CNN is but a part of the media complex. I'm sure the same nonsense was spouted on MSNBC, owned by the very corporate NBC and run by putative "adults." And what of the "entertainment" we watch? All part of the infantile corporate culture that has elevated true nitwits and scoundrels to power and immense wealth, while they produce garbage products and have taken the dignity of work away from their employees.
https://readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/45197-im-convinced-that-the-whole-national-review-is-a-cia-operation-murray-rothbard
“I’m Convinced That The Whole National Review Is A CIA Operation” — Murray Rothbard
Written by Charles Burris
Saturday, 12 August 2017 11:35
This powerful Rothbard quote, cited by journalist John Judis in his article, "William F. Buckley, Jr., The Consummate Conservative," in the September 1981 edition of The Progressive, reveals one of the biggest secrets of the past 70 years -- how after WWII and the birth of the National Security State in 1947, the Central Intelligence Agency created, fostered, and molded the synthetic ideological movement known as "Conservatism." This subject is briefly outlined in my articles, "How the CIA Bamboozled the Public For 70 Years," and The Phony Legacy of William F. Buckley, Jr., the former also dealt with the CIA's covert interaction with the non-Communist Left and Cold War Liberalism.
From the crucial time before the American government's formal entrance into World War II, establishment elites have fostered an ongoing series of elaborate intelligence operations based on psychological warfare and propaganda aimed at manipulating public opinion and attitudes in regards to the projection of American state power and interventionism. These operations, both covert and overt, have been one of the central props of the National Security State. It was out of these CIA-funded disinformation campaigns which emerged the key ideological voices of the mainstream media and its adjuncts in academia, whether marching under the unfurled banners of social democracy, liberalism, conservatism, or neoconservatism. For the past 70 years, "responsible public policy debate" has been confined to the narrow perimeters set by these establishment-sanctioned gatekeepers and mouthpieces.
It was "former" deep cover CIA agent Buckley and intelligence community veterans of the OSS and CIA (James Burnham, Wilmoore Kendall, Priscilla Buckley, and William Casey) who launched National Review, which became the premier publication of this phony "conservative movement." Buckley called Burnham, who had been a leading Trotskyist communist, WWII consultant for the Office of Strategic Services, and later head of the Political and Psychological Warfare division of the Office of Policy Coordination of the Central Intelligence Agency, “the number one intellectual influence on National Review since the day of its founding.” Buckley and NR shaped and set the stentorian dogmatic tone for such "conservatives" for decades, purging and declaring any alternative voices on the Right anathema. Author John T. McManus, in his critical biography of Buckley, described him as the "Pied Piper for the Establishment."
In the 1930s and 1940s there was the non-interventionist Old Right of libertarians and nationalists opposed to the welfare-warfare State's domestic and foreign policies of FDR's New Deal and Harry Truman's Fair Deal. They believed in a constitutionally limited and decentralized federal republic, peace and diplomacy not war and empire. The populist grassroots masses of the Old Right were opposed in several presidential elections (1936-1952) by the anglophile northeastern seaboard establishment forces within the nexus of the Morgan and Rockefeller Wall Street financial blocs. The National Security State believed this Old Right must be marginalized and destroyed. This process, as I alluded to above, began during World War II, and accelerated with the virulent covert action insurgency against Old Right figurehead Senator Robert Taft by the elite establishment Eisenhower forces led by the ardent internationalist patrician, Boston Brahmin Henry Cabot Lodge, at the 1952 GOP presidential convention, and continued unabated up to the foundation of National Review.
Here are four exceptional sources which detail this fascinating but little-known story.
The first is an article from the October 1998 edition of the Rothbard-Rockwell Report (the predecessor of LewRockwell.com). It is entitled, "Neoconservatism and the CIA," by Greg Pavlik.
In this telling except from his semi-autobiographical memoir, The Betrayal of the American Right, Murray Rothbard, delved into the central question raised by the title of this blog: "In the light of hindsight, we should now ask whether or not a major objective of National Review from its inception was to transform the right wing from an isolationist to global warmongering anti-Communist movement; and, particularly, whether or not the entire effort was in essence a CIA operation." Rothbard goes on to show how the CIA's public intellectuals at NR maliciously waged war upon the remnants of the Old Right.
The third item is a 1992 speech delivered by Rothbard to the John Randolph Club entitled, "A Strategy For The Right, which further developed his searing analysis of how the Buckleyites transformed the non-interventionist, anti-statist sentiments of a large segment of American public opinion in the brutal totalitarian direction sought by the National Security State.
And lastly there is "Swine Before Perle -- The 'National Review' Attack on LRC," by Richard Cummings, which brings this sordid story up to the time of the Iraq War.
The American poet Robert Bly wrote THE SIBLING SOCIETY now, almost a half century ago. Bly and those of us in the men's movement, coast to coast, recognized the emergence of the perpetual half adult, the Peter Pan- 'Puer aeternus'- forever child of fairy land. Many of us, despite the anti-human, life butchering sterility of the toxic femininity denouncing us, were able to seize and expand upon a meaningful, inner world reality, based on stewardship and responsible personal agency, that provided a transcendent, and a connection, to the living dimensionality of the universe we all inhabit. Many on the quest were there because of the damage wrought by the feminist/bureaucratic war on fatherhood and the family. Today, conveniently, the word mother is verboten by those same mercenary monsters so willingly swilling at the trough of totalitarian finance.
Those interested in what happens when mercenary ideological sycophancy and totalitarian finance join hands to destroy a people need look no further than the TikTok video's of a young woman displaying her uterus in a glass jar or the young woman, butchered and abandoned, clutching a basket of pills, pleading to other young people not to make the mistake she had. Or, simple mindfulness of the 10,000 manufactured psyop cuts slow bleeding, distorting and stealing American lives every day of the week.
Other refresher course's in what happens when totalitarian finance employs ideological sycophant's to destroy a nation can be found in the blood letting horror of the French revolution. More recently, the involvement of the Wall Street/ international financial cabal that ultimately brought Stalin to power who then, as in 2008 U.S.A,. looted the Russian treasury. Pay no attention, those farmers in Holland losing their homes and livelihoods to criminal finance are far far away. (So were those on the train to Auschwitz.)
Oh look--"..it's the Teeth Mother naked at last.."
This real life example pretty much contains all that stuff:
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/billionaire-family-pushing-synthetic-sex-identities-ssi-pritzkers
That's a very interesting set of ideas. Thanks.
Super interesting theory! It makes a lot of sense.
Developmental/evolutionary psychology is a large field, but you might find Robert Kegan's work on "stages of development" interesting.
This is inspired by Kegan's work:
https://meaningness.com/meaningness-history
I'm going to permit myself one more comment, then adult responsibilities.
Allan Bloom described and to a very great extent anticipated all this in his Closing of the American Mind. That book is as useful today as it should have been then. He described infantilism, safe spaces, trigger warnings, and all of that, in effect. And it remains the best treatments of Rousseau and Nietzche that I have read. And all the contemporary condemnations notwithstanding, he was a gay, Jewish, atheist Democrat. He simply loved the life of the mind, and the idiocy even then was ruining all his fun.
In my opinion one solution to all this is to do a better job selling maturity, selling the value of the feelings you get AFTER long hard patient work on a difficult task. This is what Mihaly Csikscentmihalyi (that's close) talked about with Flow. Flow is the happiness of mature people.
And Bloom himself complained then (late 80's) about the cult of the Rock Star. All our emotions, we are told, need to be powerful, easy, and as continual as possible. All successful rock stars are rich. Why are they all on drugs? Because they can't stand not being high all the time. The model, as described by Gene Simmons (who grew up poor and hungry in Israel, and who was likely selling a lifestyle he had enough sense not to embrace fully), is rock and roll all night and party every day.
But Elvis died of constipation on his toilet. You can't be a bigger rock star than Elvis, or die in many worse ways. Jimi Hendrix--top guitarist of all time in most polls--died for all intents and purposes of a sleeping pill overdose he combined with strong liquor, while he was on all accounts in a depression. John Bonham--top rock drummer of all time--drank himself to death.
To state the obvious, these are not really role models for any of us. Far better to master calligraphy, or be a really good Little League coach, or any of thousands of alternatives.
Maturity is happier than immaturity. Differentiation is freedom. Childishness is bondage. These are words people need to hear.
The problem isn’t really all that hard to understand. Until people experience want, they assume that everything is, was, and always will be there. Things like money, food, shelter, cell phones, and video games. Work is optional if someone just gives you everything you want. So, why be productive if food just…happens? Why drive if you can just call Uber? Why study if all it gets you is a grade you don’t need since you’ll never have to work?
Millennials aren’t the first with this attitude. The wealthy have always been diffident about achievement. “A gentleman never knows [or bothers himself to know] the state of his finances.”
Bottom line: as long as people are indulged and never have to be responsible, why bother being “serious”? Probably looks like a boring waste of time to them.
My mother always called this “being hungry.” I’m a college educated GenXer. A lot of my friends who are considered the most “successful” career wise are the ones who had to work harder -- no family money, no genius IQ -- just people who were hungry to do better or prove people wrong.
Part of the problem is that the Hippies demanded freedom from responsibility: "Turn on, tune in, drop out." It didn't help that their Greatest Gen parents tried to give them "the childhood they'd never had." In short, childhood was elevated to the ideal state.
But they wanted rights along with their childhood. Rights that historically were given only to adults, in a rights=responsibilities equation that made growing up worth doing.
When you get all those rights without bothering to grow up first, why grow up at all? And why not give younger and younger children the same rights?
This is the societal disaster that has been created.
Rights come with responsibilities. They forgot that part.
I like this. As I grow older and hopefully more mature, I find more value in liberty over freedom. Liberty is freedom and responsibility (as someone else define in an earlier comment). If we sell only freedom, I think we will get chaos.
See Howard Rheingold on "DISINFORMOCRACY".
Advertising took over politics, in the age of (postmodern) suburban consumerism.
Some much wisdom in this comment. Thank you for taking the time to write it
(duplicate)
You now have a much bigger problem: the terrorist attack by an election denier in New Mexico.
https://www.newsweek.com/solomon-pena-new-mexico-shootings-gop-candidate-election-denial-1774323
(I assume that the paranoid conspiratard troll farms will quickly spin yet another conspiracy theory about the terrorist attack by the election denier.)
I am reminded of former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris from the Netflix special "The Social Dilemma." (the irony of pairing "Google" with "ethicist" is not lost). Harris has quoted the late E.O. Wilson (biologist/researcher/two-time Pulitzer winner) about our current state. Wilson said ...
"We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall."
It does seem like the developing brain (emotions) is incapable of handling its own creation (technology), and we are ill-prepared (institutions) to help catch up. It seems to me young peoples' reality lies within their phones, and the ramifications are profound. It is evident now, with ever-increasing diagnoses of social pathologies -- depression, anxiety, gender confusion, etc.
Kids are checking out. And they are checking out earlier and earlier. This piece provides a salient view of that ... delayed adolescence, declining social connections (falling birth and marriage rates), culture wars. Like others here, I don't have an answer. What can one say? "Follow your dreams" when those dreams have fallen into the abyss of social media?
I shake my head. I'm at a loss.
There is a bunch of social science that resulted om E.O. Wilson's brilliant work, including Iain McGilchrist's latest two volume, 1,500 page book on brain science and evolutionary psychology.
Near the end of the PBS (USA public TV) documentary on his work, Wilson states that "the human species is dysfunctional", for the reasons he stated in the quote you provided.
But humans have a very "plastic" cognitive system, adaptable to change, and there are already people proposing how to adapt to the present crisis on the basis of brain science:
https://metarationality.com/stem-fluidity-bridge
Thank you for the feedback and link. Very much appreciated.
Glad you liked it.
I have that Wilson quote written down.
Corruption is ageless. And sexless. Bernie Madoff wore a suit and tie, SBK shlubby socks. Elizabeth Holman a black turtleneck. All were or are rotten to the core. Fortunately, they got caught. There’s a host of equally vile people, some prominent, others slithering behind the scenes, tempting all of us with wealth, health, and popularity. Narcissicists appealing to their kindred spirits that lurk in all our souls.
Katherine Boyle is right. We need to grow up. And, by all means, let’s pass the baton of leadership. But be careful what you wish for. Our founders were youngsters who knew when and how to exit the stage gracefully. By the same token, they valued the wisdom of age and experience, which might explain why they called upon Benjamin Franklin, then 70, in the drafting of the Declaration, and then again (at age 81) for the Constitution. Don’t put us geezers on the ice floe yet.
Who’s the culprit in all of this? Ultimately, we are. We’ve created a public school system that has jettisoned values education and character formation for self-centered social emotional learning and mindfulness. We need national instruction in how to say no, and a seminar on respect in all its manifestations for others.
We also need to put the reins back on our government, an institution that underwrites the absolute worst aspects of our natures.
Those founders, young and old, understood a government’s first responsibility is to protect our fundamental natural rights. Everything else is subordinate because with out those primary rights nothing else is secure. They also knew that a government allowed out of it cage will crush us.
Maybe it’s all because the parents of boomers lived through the depression and WW II and never had the luxury of a college education. They went to work at 18 and got married and had kids. So they thought they wanted better for their kids, and sent them off to university so they would have white color jobs. Then these successful boomer kids did the same for their kids, except somewhere along the way universities stopped educating and switched to indoctrination and coddling. And they were living through a period of economic properity, so they got the impression things were always this way. When you don’t have to worry about running out of money before the next pay check, you can worry about whether your kids are safe playing at the park. Your kids don’t have to babysit and have a paper route after school to have pocket money. And now? I hate to write this but it seems like tough times are what are needed to retrain the minds of kids.
My thoughts exactly. Good intentions for sure. But, the economy and our institutions changed. Social media also adds to the pressure of raising ‘perfect’ kids according to the ‘crowd’. Hopefully we can return to the basics that create happy and purposeful lives and a mature populace.
Well we ceded academia to the left and thought "what's the worst that could happen?" Now we know - chaos, lunacy, treason, societal destruction.
academia had a bad growth model based on the GI Bill after WW2 that failed by the early 1970s. then 1980s/90s neoliberalism destroyed the bad growth model, and didn't replace it with anything better.
bad economics led to a spiral of endless organizational dysfunction.