The zeal with which my Ivy League educated friends are endorsing this move against Parler and/or calling for the outright persecution of anyone who was legally at a political rally in DC or even just voted for Trump is frightening. They seem incapable of realizing that this power will be turned around on them a…
The zeal with which my Ivy League educated friends are endorsing this move against Parler and/or calling for the outright persecution of anyone who was legally at a political rally in DC or even just voted for Trump is frightening. They seem incapable of realizing that this power will be turned around on them and are treating it as a zero sum game where they will emerge victorious over the forces of evil. Those that disagree with them, even if it's simply over their means, are racists, troglodytes, or worse. The lessons of 2001 and unchecked power in the name of security are lost on them.
I fear we're headed for even darker times as these totalitarian measures will certainly inspire a reactionary wave that will then be used as justification to crack down even harder. It is an eminently foreseeable consequence, and therefore must be intended. Stay well everyone and stay safe, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Lee, I'm having the same experience. Virtually without exception, all my Ivy League pals are fully on-board with Democratic Authoritarianism. These are primarily high-achieving professionals who have sailed through 20-40 years of career success and personal financial expansion. They have solid family legacies in the form of trust funds and inheritances. A Marxist would call them "bourgeois." In spite of all their education and intellectualism, they're unable to recall that the "bourgeois" are always the first to go under totalitarian regimes as their critical thinking abilities and inside information (as direct servants to the elite) represent a serious threat to tyrants.
The psychology is complex and I'm trying to analyze it. These people have always studied hard and received Straight A's -- a reward for their ideology as much as intellectual effort. They don't understand failure; I recall that at Harvard Business School there was in fact a course in how to handle failures and mistakes. They have a deep investment in The System and have been handsomely rewarded by it. Tunnel-visioned, they have completely disregarded numerous recent "signal moments" like 9/11 and willingly parrot whatever the NY Times has to say.
Externally they celebrate success and achievement by posting happy family pics of expensive summer homes and exotic vacations. Internally things seem to be more complicated as they openly support "leftist" policies and positions that oppose their own class and the "dominance" of their ethnic group (almost invariably White), including gangs and groups that have publicly-avowed Marxist leaders. These achievers constantly shout against racism but live in a world entirely populated by people like themselves and would vehemently fight to keep a housing project or homeless shelter out of their own neighborhoods. They publicly sign on with the fantasy of "economic fairness" but pay high fees to accountants to shelter their incomes from taxes.
Is it guilt? I don't think so. I think it all stems from a complicated mix of enormous self-regard, entitlement (usually from birth), sense of moral authority, "head-in-the-sand" levels of naivete, a generally sincere wish to be "good," and deeply buried anxiety. The anxiety is rooted in the day-to-day moral compromises, big and small, that are almost impossible to avoid in banking, law, medical, journalism, and tech exec professions. It's also rooted in their inability to protect themselves at the most basic levels: personal body integrity, food production, wilderness hunting, fishing, etc. Even if they have a country house, they are truly "all in" when it comes to the dependencies of suburban life.
Also, for these people, *how they are perceived* is everything. They want you to think that they are Thinking Correctly and they signal virtue at every opportunity.
Basically they are all a lost cause and I've stopped talking to them on any meaningful level.
Lee and Urban, you are both on point and I just want to add detail that I think is useful for understanding.
1) The impact of social media is huge in this - in the creation of the bubble these people are in. Watch "Social Dilemma" and realize that the movement leftward of the Dem party starting around 2010 was social-media driven. The fact that the media was affected first draws even people who aren't on social media in, because the social media bubble first took over all of those producing content for the MSM.
2) This is an oligarchic elite being created, which will not end in authoritarian monarchy but rather in oligarchy looking more and more like China. These people have no fear and are eager to head that way because they are "in". The people who should worry about the repercussions are the working class and poor minority voters who support them, they are the ones who will be abandoned when push comes to shove. In fact, they effectively already are abandoned as their votes are sought through continued grievance, rather than solving their problems to create their happiness and contentment in life.
Succinct and accurate. The tribes that matter aren't L/R or R/D. They're authoritarian and libertarian. That's the battle, and the authoritarians are winning.
I disagree with the last part. In the early 90s, you had "free speech" enough to run your jaw at the bar or the thanksgiving table. If you wanted to go further and speak to the masses, you'd have to persuade ABC to give you a half hour slot, which they wouldn't do unless you promised to keep it politically insipid AND no cuss words AND no blasphemy AND no titties AND nothing gay. Joe Biden wanted to make raves as verboten as marijuana, and the ideas you read were limited to what was on sale at the local book store or library.
In 2020 ordinary people can broadcast their voice to the whole world while smoking weed and swearing like a trooper. You can download more or less anything from the history of subversive books, and probably find it for free even if Amazon won't sell you a copy. If your editor won't publish your articles you can set up for yourself on substack. And at the end of a hard day, free porn is streamed into the home like tap water.
I can't square this with the idea that the authoritarians and moral ninnies are winning. They have been routed, no?
Didn't Lennon write something about buying the peasants off with sex and tv?
They used to let the eunuchs wander anywhere in the castle, knowing they were harmless. Don't be fooled. They could give a rip if you marinate in dope, porn, blasphemy, subversive books and naughty words as long as you're harmless. In fact they may prefer that you're marinated as to better operate.
Authoritarians will move to end currency as quickly as they are moving to into censorship. Then they will monetize everything and privacy (read freedom) will no longer exist.
Not yet. They are winning the battle, not the war. On August 9, 1974, the Republican Party's funeral took place. Six years later Reagan won in a landslide. In 2020 ordinary people still had internet access that hadn't been terminated yet for dissidence. Their dissidence wasn't subject to reporting by their kids. There was no mandatory national registration and monitoring. We have more authoritarian advances yet to endure before routing can begin.
I don't believe you can blame social media for PMC love of status quo. I listened to a great rant by populism explainer-extraordinaire and Listen Liberal, The People, No author Thomas Frank on the Bad Faith podcast this week. He summarized all I know about elites going back to the 80s, when I met them in sororities, fraternities. Conformists to a tee, ready to look the other way if any of their tribe breaks the rules, always willing to throw lower classes under the bus, and that goes for Dems and Reps alike. Populism, working class consciousness, is our only hope.
I did watch "Social Dilemma" but found all the millennial smugness so irritating that I couldn't take the geeks seriously. I still find it hard to believe that "social media" has shaped Generation X to this degree.
In the oligarchic context you propose, the Ivy Leaguers' "virtue" is the skin that covers the skull -- they are unable to empathize, morally compromised, and operating at an instinctive animal level. Also some of them have real *hatred* for Trump and supporters, another sign of moral fissure. The American Political Class is therefore divided from its own humanity and universal truth.
At least wealthy Trumpers don't make claims about virtue. They're just fine with enriching themselves on the backs of others without empathy nor concern. This is also a sad condition but at least it's refreshingly direct.
I used to share a house with a starting football player for the NY Giants. He was a smart Midwest guy with an analytical mind. Everyone in the world was enamored with Lawrence Taylor at the time, but to me he was a beast who had one job in life....get the QB. There was no reason to aspire to be him, be like him, or even like him. When he put the uniform on, he was a one man wrecking crew. He won..we won...everyone won...until he crashed and burned by his own excesses.
I didn’t lose any sleep over his decline because I knew that he was a tool to be used by the Giants and by the state of New Jersey to excite and delight the masses. That’s Donald J Trump.
Am I ashamed I’ve used him the last 4 years to get done what needed to get done?
Am I shocked he broken some furniture and china in the West Wing?
Am I mature enough to understand that he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like Lawrence Taylor used to?
Don’t fall in love with the man or the woman promising you X, Y or Z...no matter how good they are at a particular task.
Always...Always...Always..... Think for yourself and own your own agency.
It’s the only think that separates us from 1984 and The Brave New World.
The hate comes from social media and media. Same as Fox News making people hate the Clintons in the 90s. It becomes lizard brain, and the bubbles literally include separate sets of facts. Lesley Stahl asks Trump questions based on things that your Ivy Gen X folks believe to be true but just ain't. But the whole bubble believes them to be true (e.g. Hunter Biden laptop = Russian disinfo).
The forces at work here are the same. Many on the left, both these Ivy leaguers as well as antifa, get indoctrinated and brainwashed on one set of falsehoods. Many on the right, including the Capitol rioters, get indoctrinated on another. Antifa and the Capitol rioters have fewer jobs and less happiness in the middle of the pandemic and their hate moves them to violence. The Ivy Leaguers are moved to hate but not violence. But it's the same phenomenon, driven largely by social media and the media forces laid out in Taibbi's "Hate, Inc".
Thank you, I'm well aware of this. I'm Gen X and this is the group I was referring to in my original post about Ivy Leaguers at the top of the thread.
The Millennials are the public face of Social Media and these are the self-congratulatory types featured in Social Dilemma, grandiosely assigning themselves the awesome blame for "Destroying the World." I disagree with this perspective. IMO Social Media is a symptom, not a cause.
When Ned Lamont defeated Joe Liebermann in the Democratic Senate Primary in 2006, the strong leftward movement was already well underway. The internet (if not social media) played a large part in that movement.
Here's a fascinating take: woke ideas can be understood as a type of Veblen good. If I'm a straight white male, embracing woke principles *should* be against my selfish interest. Therefore embracing these principles is a demonstration not just of how good and moral I am, but also how *strong* I am.
This was a fascinating and insightful article. The thing I see missing among these Luxury Leisure Class types is “character”. The kind of character one learns while digging ditches or bailing hay. Perhaps the only thing that will save us is mandatory military service. At a minimum it would teach discipline and character by, at least for a time, putting everyone at the same level of worthlessness(in the eyes of a Gunnery Sargent).
Commentor, dodging military service is one of the perks of being in the 1%. We haven't had a President with any military experience since Bush Sr. circa 1990 -- since the Pentagon is running that show there is no need from their point of view, but it would be better for the American People if this were a requirement for the Presidency.
I did sign up for Selective Service when I turned 18 and I'd do it again.
I think in terms of activism itself it must be said that you also need to be in luxury to devote the time to social criticism instead of assuring your own economic well being. You can be Laurie David or you can be an antifa chud living off a rich parent, but you can't spend time on woke activism unless you have the luxury of time.
ON the flip side, racism correlates indirectly with economic status - less educated people hate the "other" not only due to ignorance but because of the direct loss of economic opportunity as equality improves.
Whereas you are saying Richie Rich is so next level untouchable that he shows he is all for the elevation of the other, who will remain several stations below him.
Classically you describe it wellbut I don;t thinmk they are in any danger in this version.
This is a uniquely American fascism, it is an Oligarchic fascism without a visible Dear Leader hidden by a Potemkin democracy that shepherds voters to chose one or the other of the allowed candidates at the national level.
As for legitimacy, yeah, well, people get deplatformed for pointing at the studies of how quickly these voting machines can be owned onsite which then leads to the unanswered question of their system security knowledge on the actual tally servers.
Yeah, I don't question it, I just point at it so I don't get banned for pointing at the easily verifiable already highly public info.
In any case your friends, they should be just fine if they get on board with the sharks down at the country club.
Country club membership is no guarantee. In the most extreme example, check the bond traders etc. that didn't make it out of the WTC. Some were lucky, others were protected...and a few others were neither.
I agree with Wally below. Many of these people are stressed around the clock and only as useful as their masters find them on any given day. You'd think they'd realize this and jump the track, but if SubStack Commentator 34 is correct, then they are up late at night praying to continue Insider status.
Early in Stalin's reign, he had a lieutenant that was very loyal. So loyal that he informed Stalin about a plot to kill Stalin and install him as the leader. What did Stalin do? Killed his perceived competitor. Loyal or not, he was a threat. Same thing will happen here.
They think they'll be able to charm the socks for the dictators. It won't work; it never works. And as you said, they will be the first people led to the gallows.
As a sad parallel to this: I worked with Newsom's team early in the pandemic on potential paths and responses. It became perfectly clear very early on that lots and lots of Latinos were going to die, and the reason wasn't only worse health and access to healthcare. Newsom's "diversity" on his staff consists of Latinx folks who went to Berkeley and UCLA and have very little to no understanding of what the life of a Latino in multigenerational living space in LA is like. They had no idea how to communicate to them, no idea how to help them, and no clue why they weren't simply magically doing the things all of their buddies from college would rationally do in response to the pandemic. 80% of the deaths in LA County are Latino, versus 48% of the population.
I live in a semi rural area in San Diego county, and can attest to the truth of what you describe. Folks need to understand that California has the highest poverty rate in the US, while also having among the highest cost of living. Poor people in CA have no choice but to live 3 and 4 generations together
It does, but it's more than this. California is a very business unfriendly. The state income tax is, I believe, the highest in the US (if not, it's no. 2 or 3). The middle class grows smaller as middle income earners move out of state to places like Texas with better job prospects and cost of living, as do many retirees looking for lower cost of living. The poor stay either because of family or because they can't afford to move. It's also interesting that we are starting to the some large silicon valley business moving or expanding out of state, such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise an Tesla. I've lived here my whole life, and will be moving when I retire. The direction of California is toward two classes - the very rich and the poor. It causes me pain to see what my beautiful state has become.
The big secret that no one is saying: HP, Tesla, etc are moving under cover of general issues with California, but the specific issue is Board diversity. CA already started requiring one woman on Boards, but starting end of 2021 it's a higher number of women and also need specific POC or LGBTQ. The people moving just don't want to change their boards just yet. Usually a CEO has been put in place by the board and Board changes put their job at risk. Board members obviously like their slots and don't want to lose them.
I'm not sure that's much of an issue with the silicon valley companies,. The issue I recall as mentioned by most of these companies is cost of llivifor thei g
Their diet plays a huge role. I lived directly next to a housing project for eight years (until quite recently) and saw first-hand how food stamps are spent. It should be illegal to use your food stamp allocation to buy more than 15% of sugar and trash foods, but it isn't. Therefore "food stamps" represent a transfer payment to Coca Cola Inc.
I live in the Southwest and lived in SoCal. Latinos and Hispanics aren't living in housing projects in CA. They're living crowded into apartments and single family houses as rent is exorbitant. And many, esp elder, eat traditional staples. They are dying at higher rates all over the US, as are Native Americans and blacks.
I would start by blaming the agribusiness and city planning for that. How do you expect poor people to be able to eat well without a decently priced farmer's market within biking distance ?
Urban grocery stores have decent food, including some organic options, and it is possible to obtain a solid diet.
Farmer's markets don't take food stamps but there is a an urban farmer's market a 15-minute walk from the housing projects described above.
The problem is not access, it is policy. All these "progressive" mayors and governors really show their true stripes on this one. They don't care what poor people eat. If they did, they'd do something about it.
Meanwhile Coke and Monsanto keep raking it in on our tax dime.
Hmm, I thought that you were talking about one of those "food deserts". Are they actually just not that common in the USA, or were your neighbors just lucky ?
Thanks - and a question. Shouldn't we learn from China how to do fast mass Covid-19 (the "Trump" virus) vaccination? We are extremely slow -- it will take by new reports about 14 weeks to vaccinate priority groups. How possibly we can be so slow and disorganized. China vaccinates million plus people essentially overnight. Is anybody studying this -- how they can do it? Many thanks
Great question. US and China use different practices. Step one in the US is for a private company to spend more than $2B over twelve years before the first clinical dose can be taken. That's a result of ever-increasing demands from the FDA, that Trump spent four years fighting to get only a lowering of cost and shortage of length of time to bring new generics to market. Step one in China is that a government lab develops a medication and the government orders is manufactured and used.
China's vaccine is carried on an adenovirus so that it can infiltrate cells to prompt making antibodies. Adenoviruses are common cold viruses just like COVID19, they are just less contagious but create complications regardless of age. China tweaked a biowarfare weapon, an adenovirus carrying deadly infections, to carry bits of COVID19. If the patient has adenovirus antibodies from a prior cold, they will kill the vaccine. If the vaccine works, the first sign is usually symptoms that look exactly like COVID19.
US vaccines rely on messengerRNA, having no viruses at all. Much more expensive than China's vaccine to develop and manufacture, but far safer. Project Warp Speed was the first time in history that the FDA was part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Logistics of mRNA vaccines are the hardest part. The science is relatively simple, every scientist to whom I've spoken concurs that the logistics are the hardest part. Our Federal form of government lets the central government manage delivery to the states to centers identified by the states. The planning was intense, very difficult, and pulled off well until states took possession. No US President has the authority to order state health departments what to do with the vaccines, and some states - noticeably California and NY, fucked it up. The Coronavirus Task Force and the CDC issued guidance, not orders, to the states. No change of name on the Oval Office will make this any different. My state, Tennessee, is vaccinating quickly without any wasted doses; NY had to destroy nearly half its vaccines.
I'm not a Trump supporter, I am a now-retired physician, guided by evidence. The COVID19 response by Trump was better than I could have hoped for. I don't like the guy, never voted for him, but this was a real success. Too bad you'll never read about it on Facespace or Whastwitinstagoogletube.
Thank you very very much. All in all -- US acted as a failed state. China has total of less than 5K dead -- we are now approaching that number daily.
After nine months we are still unprepared for mass vaccination. Moreover, we still don't information -- daily, weekly - by city, county -- how many people were vaccinated, percentage of total -- basic information. This is horrible incompetency for a country that wants to be "a shining example" and organizes coup after coup - to bring "democracy and freedom" (except in Saudi Arabia).
I never supported insane clown Trump but -- the rot appears to be MUCH deeper, starting with health for profit instead universal health care.
Once again, many thanks for your kind response. Stay well and my best regards, Boris
Boris, the nature of a federation is not well understood even among most US citizens. In 1776 thirteen sovereign nations surrendered a small part of their sovereignty to a central government, and wrote a constitution to keep power at the state level, closer to the people. The constitution was never written for efficiency, it was written for individual liberty. It contained many compromises, including two chambers of congress and the electoral college, to prevent the tyranny of either the majority or the federal government.
My friends in Europe and Asia point to how compliant their citizens are with government orders, never recalling that the U.S. was settled by people fleeing over-reaching governments. We don't have the submission gene built-in; we do have the freedom-to-dissent gene.
Compare annual deaths COVID19 to annual deaths from medical errors. Then recognize that a diagnosis of COVID19 and a cause of death of COVID19 are both rewarded financially, and you begin to squint. The cost of China's achieved efficiency was as many as 150M dead at the hands of authoritarian government during the 20th century. We can have another 149M plus die before paying the same cost.
Centralized control (like China) gets the details right and the big picture wrong. Democratic republics do the opposite. We have the big picture right but and drive the details off of profit motives or incompetent civil servants. Democracy needs to improve its candidate selection processes - right now it's resting on its laurels because it's good at its key innovation - ousting bad performers fairly quickly without blood, but it still hasn't learned how to pick good performers.
How China organize and do almost overnight vaccination of more than a million people in one city? They must have tens of thousands teams and superb organization to be able to do that. I thought that you perhaps know details...
Occam's razor should make it obvious that the Chicoms didn’t vaccinate a million people in one city overnight and that they are simply lying about it. How would anyone know?
It helped that the virology institute in Wuhan was the center for Chinese biowarfare at least until a decade ago when I stopped following it. A couple tweaks to an existing bioweapon and presto, you've got a COVID vaccine. Tell the population when to be where to get the vaccine, and there's 100% compliance. Efficiency is one measurement and it considers only elapsed time and resources consumed. The end result and the means to get there are irrelevant, which is why professionals measure more than one aspect of a program.
US vaccinated almost 2 million with Salk's free polio jab and placebo, many of them kids, in one month in 1956. I think Americans under 40 have only seen our privatized, neolib systems. They cannot even envision a country with competent public logistics and citizen cooperation.
Lee, I surmise this crack down is timed so to create a backlash. Then Kamala, the corrupt DA[Jow is gone soon] can crack down. The problem is the people who are victims of the crack down are well armed and will not go quietly into the night. The left has restarted fighting the Civil War recently. Hardly a coincidence.
Emergency!! Call the Southern Poverty Law Center with their $471 Million endowment! Since there's no Poverty in the South that needs their attention, they can use it to round up active Neo-Nazis!!
LOL! Born and bred Connecticut Yankee. Oh..and the Klan "don't cotton fucking Eyetalians!" Your unbridled anger is something you should deal with soon. I'm a longtime fan of Greenwald. I'm a true libertarian, you are a knee jerk liberal. Glenn is intellectually honest. You are neither.
Maybe this power will be turned around on them, or maybe they can use this power to permanently entrench their own power. It's a high stakes game of poker, playing with freedom chips, and the eventual winner takes all.
The true believers always end up on the receiving end with those they burnt down the forest of laws to get at, while the cynical opportunists end up in charge.
Funny, those Ivy League schools were thrilled to be endowed by the slave shipping fortunes of the 17th and 18th centuries. No reparations, no "sorry", nothing.
Scared is an understatement. Especially for liberals disenfranchised by their own party who voted for Trump. The only strategy is a bunker mentallity one. Stay low and incognito for the next four years or longer.
Thank you. Eloquently put.
The zeal with which my Ivy League educated friends are endorsing this move against Parler and/or calling for the outright persecution of anyone who was legally at a political rally in DC or even just voted for Trump is frightening. They seem incapable of realizing that this power will be turned around on them and are treating it as a zero sum game where they will emerge victorious over the forces of evil. Those that disagree with them, even if it's simply over their means, are racists, troglodytes, or worse. The lessons of 2001 and unchecked power in the name of security are lost on them.
I fear we're headed for even darker times as these totalitarian measures will certainly inspire a reactionary wave that will then be used as justification to crack down even harder. It is an eminently foreseeable consequence, and therefore must be intended. Stay well everyone and stay safe, it's going to be a bumpy ride.
Lee, I'm having the same experience. Virtually without exception, all my Ivy League pals are fully on-board with Democratic Authoritarianism. These are primarily high-achieving professionals who have sailed through 20-40 years of career success and personal financial expansion. They have solid family legacies in the form of trust funds and inheritances. A Marxist would call them "bourgeois." In spite of all their education and intellectualism, they're unable to recall that the "bourgeois" are always the first to go under totalitarian regimes as their critical thinking abilities and inside information (as direct servants to the elite) represent a serious threat to tyrants.
The psychology is complex and I'm trying to analyze it. These people have always studied hard and received Straight A's -- a reward for their ideology as much as intellectual effort. They don't understand failure; I recall that at Harvard Business School there was in fact a course in how to handle failures and mistakes. They have a deep investment in The System and have been handsomely rewarded by it. Tunnel-visioned, they have completely disregarded numerous recent "signal moments" like 9/11 and willingly parrot whatever the NY Times has to say.
Externally they celebrate success and achievement by posting happy family pics of expensive summer homes and exotic vacations. Internally things seem to be more complicated as they openly support "leftist" policies and positions that oppose their own class and the "dominance" of their ethnic group (almost invariably White), including gangs and groups that have publicly-avowed Marxist leaders. These achievers constantly shout against racism but live in a world entirely populated by people like themselves and would vehemently fight to keep a housing project or homeless shelter out of their own neighborhoods. They publicly sign on with the fantasy of "economic fairness" but pay high fees to accountants to shelter their incomes from taxes.
Is it guilt? I don't think so. I think it all stems from a complicated mix of enormous self-regard, entitlement (usually from birth), sense of moral authority, "head-in-the-sand" levels of naivete, a generally sincere wish to be "good," and deeply buried anxiety. The anxiety is rooted in the day-to-day moral compromises, big and small, that are almost impossible to avoid in banking, law, medical, journalism, and tech exec professions. It's also rooted in their inability to protect themselves at the most basic levels: personal body integrity, food production, wilderness hunting, fishing, etc. Even if they have a country house, they are truly "all in" when it comes to the dependencies of suburban life.
Also, for these people, *how they are perceived* is everything. They want you to think that they are Thinking Correctly and they signal virtue at every opportunity.
Basically they are all a lost cause and I've stopped talking to them on any meaningful level.
Lee and Urban, you are both on point and I just want to add detail that I think is useful for understanding.
1) The impact of social media is huge in this - in the creation of the bubble these people are in. Watch "Social Dilemma" and realize that the movement leftward of the Dem party starting around 2010 was social-media driven. The fact that the media was affected first draws even people who aren't on social media in, because the social media bubble first took over all of those producing content for the MSM.
2) This is an oligarchic elite being created, which will not end in authoritarian monarchy but rather in oligarchy looking more and more like China. These people have no fear and are eager to head that way because they are "in". The people who should worry about the repercussions are the working class and poor minority voters who support them, they are the ones who will be abandoned when push comes to shove. In fact, they effectively already are abandoned as their votes are sought through continued grievance, rather than solving their problems to create their happiness and contentment in life.
Succinct and accurate. The tribes that matter aren't L/R or R/D. They're authoritarian and libertarian. That's the battle, and the authoritarians are winning.
I disagree with the last part. In the early 90s, you had "free speech" enough to run your jaw at the bar or the thanksgiving table. If you wanted to go further and speak to the masses, you'd have to persuade ABC to give you a half hour slot, which they wouldn't do unless you promised to keep it politically insipid AND no cuss words AND no blasphemy AND no titties AND nothing gay. Joe Biden wanted to make raves as verboten as marijuana, and the ideas you read were limited to what was on sale at the local book store or library.
In 2020 ordinary people can broadcast their voice to the whole world while smoking weed and swearing like a trooper. You can download more or less anything from the history of subversive books, and probably find it for free even if Amazon won't sell you a copy. If your editor won't publish your articles you can set up for yourself on substack. And at the end of a hard day, free porn is streamed into the home like tap water.
I can't square this with the idea that the authoritarians and moral ninnies are winning. They have been routed, no?
Didn't Lennon write something about buying the peasants off with sex and tv?
They used to let the eunuchs wander anywhere in the castle, knowing they were harmless. Don't be fooled. They could give a rip if you marinate in dope, porn, blasphemy, subversive books and naughty words as long as you're harmless. In fact they may prefer that you're marinated as to better operate.
Authoritarians will move to end currency as quickly as they are moving to into censorship. Then they will monetize everything and privacy (read freedom) will no longer exist.
Not yet. They are winning the battle, not the war. On August 9, 1974, the Republican Party's funeral took place. Six years later Reagan won in a landslide. In 2020 ordinary people still had internet access that hadn't been terminated yet for dissidence. Their dissidence wasn't subject to reporting by their kids. There was no mandatory national registration and monitoring. We have more authoritarian advances yet to endure before routing can begin.
I don't believe you can blame social media for PMC love of status quo. I listened to a great rant by populism explainer-extraordinaire and Listen Liberal, The People, No author Thomas Frank on the Bad Faith podcast this week. He summarized all I know about elites going back to the 80s, when I met them in sororities, fraternities. Conformists to a tee, ready to look the other way if any of their tribe breaks the rules, always willing to throw lower classes under the bus, and that goes for Dems and Reps alike. Populism, working class consciousness, is our only hope.
I did watch "Social Dilemma" but found all the millennial smugness so irritating that I couldn't take the geeks seriously. I still find it hard to believe that "social media" has shaped Generation X to this degree.
In the oligarchic context you propose, the Ivy Leaguers' "virtue" is the skin that covers the skull -- they are unable to empathize, morally compromised, and operating at an instinctive animal level. Also some of them have real *hatred* for Trump and supporters, another sign of moral fissure. The American Political Class is therefore divided from its own humanity and universal truth.
At least wealthy Trumpers don't make claims about virtue. They're just fine with enriching themselves on the backs of others without empathy nor concern. This is also a sad condition but at least it's refreshingly direct.
I used to share a house with a starting football player for the NY Giants. He was a smart Midwest guy with an analytical mind. Everyone in the world was enamored with Lawrence Taylor at the time, but to me he was a beast who had one job in life....get the QB. There was no reason to aspire to be him, be like him, or even like him. When he put the uniform on, he was a one man wrecking crew. He won..we won...everyone won...until he crashed and burned by his own excesses.
I didn’t lose any sleep over his decline because I knew that he was a tool to be used by the Giants and by the state of New Jersey to excite and delight the masses. That’s Donald J Trump.
Am I ashamed I’ve used him the last 4 years to get done what needed to get done?
Am I shocked he broken some furniture and china in the West Wing?
Am I mature enough to understand that he puts his pants on one leg at a time just like Lawrence Taylor used to?
Don’t fall in love with the man or the woman promising you X, Y or Z...no matter how good they are at a particular task.
Always...Always...Always..... Think for yourself and own your own agency.
It’s the only think that separates us from 1984 and The Brave New World.
The hate comes from social media and media. Same as Fox News making people hate the Clintons in the 90s. It becomes lizard brain, and the bubbles literally include separate sets of facts. Lesley Stahl asks Trump questions based on things that your Ivy Gen X folks believe to be true but just ain't. But the whole bubble believes them to be true (e.g. Hunter Biden laptop = Russian disinfo).
The forces at work here are the same. Many on the left, both these Ivy leaguers as well as antifa, get indoctrinated and brainwashed on one set of falsehoods. Many on the right, including the Capitol rioters, get indoctrinated on another. Antifa and the Capitol rioters have fewer jobs and less happiness in the middle of the pandemic and their hate moves them to violence. The Ivy Leaguers are moved to hate but not violence. But it's the same phenomenon, driven largely by social media and the media forces laid out in Taibbi's "Hate, Inc".
Gen X are the 41-56 years old.
Millenials are the 25-40 years old. (aka Gen Y)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_X
Thank you, I'm well aware of this. I'm Gen X and this is the group I was referring to in my original post about Ivy Leaguers at the top of the thread.
The Millennials are the public face of Social Media and these are the self-congratulatory types featured in Social Dilemma, grandiosely assigning themselves the awesome blame for "Destroying the World." I disagree with this perspective. IMO Social Media is a symptom, not a cause.
Yeah, I wasn't completely sure, just in case. Yeah, something was off for me in «Social Dilemma» too, thanks for putting it into words !
However, note that the generations 'raised' on Social Media will eventually come in power, so we're far from having seen all the impacts yet…
Nothing I've read in a long time says, "I have no idea what I'm talking about" quite as effectively as:
"the movement leftward of the Dem party starting around 2010"
When Ned Lamont defeated Joe Liebermann in the Democratic Senate Primary in 2006, the strong leftward movement was already well underway. The internet (if not social media) played a large part in that movement.
Here's a fascinating take: woke ideas can be understood as a type of Veblen good. If I'm a straight white male, embracing woke principles *should* be against my selfish interest. Therefore embracing these principles is a demonstration not just of how good and moral I am, but also how *strong* I am.
https://quillette.com/2019/11/16/thorstein-veblens-theory-of-the-leisure-class-a-status-update/
This was a fascinating and insightful article. The thing I see missing among these Luxury Leisure Class types is “character”. The kind of character one learns while digging ditches or bailing hay. Perhaps the only thing that will save us is mandatory military service. At a minimum it would teach discipline and character by, at least for a time, putting everyone at the same level of worthlessness(in the eyes of a Gunnery Sargent).
Commentor, dodging military service is one of the perks of being in the 1%. We haven't had a President with any military experience since Bush Sr. circa 1990 -- since the Pentagon is running that show there is no need from their point of view, but it would be better for the American People if this were a requirement for the Presidency.
I did sign up for Selective Service when I turned 18 and I'd do it again.
Yeah, it would have to be a mandate without loopholes. No exceptions for any reason. Everyone gets treated the same way. This will build character.
Almost everyone, the kids of the 0.1% will always find ways to avoid it. But it will still be good for the kids of the 9.9%
That is awesome, thanks!!
I think in terms of activism itself it must be said that you also need to be in luxury to devote the time to social criticism instead of assuring your own economic well being. You can be Laurie David or you can be an antifa chud living off a rich parent, but you can't spend time on woke activism unless you have the luxury of time.
ON the flip side, racism correlates indirectly with economic status - less educated people hate the "other" not only due to ignorance but because of the direct loss of economic opportunity as equality improves.
Whereas you are saying Richie Rich is so next level untouchable that he shows he is all for the elevation of the other, who will remain several stations below him.
Classically you describe it wellbut I don;t thinmk they are in any danger in this version.
This is a uniquely American fascism, it is an Oligarchic fascism without a visible Dear Leader hidden by a Potemkin democracy that shepherds voters to chose one or the other of the allowed candidates at the national level.
As for legitimacy, yeah, well, people get deplatformed for pointing at the studies of how quickly these voting machines can be owned onsite which then leads to the unanswered question of their system security knowledge on the actual tally servers.
Yeah, I don't question it, I just point at it so I don't get banned for pointing at the easily verifiable already highly public info.
In any case your friends, they should be just fine if they get on board with the sharks down at the country club.
Country club membership is no guarantee. In the most extreme example, check the bond traders etc. that didn't make it out of the WTC. Some were lucky, others were protected...and a few others were neither.
I agree with Wally below. Many of these people are stressed around the clock and only as useful as their masters find them on any given day. You'd think they'd realize this and jump the track, but if SubStack Commentator 34 is correct, then they are up late at night praying to continue Insider status.
"The "bourgeois" are always the first to go under totalitarian regimes"
Not always true : it was the middle class that put Nazis in power, and even reaped some of the rewards (except for the middle-class Jews).
Early in Stalin's reign, he had a lieutenant that was very loyal. So loyal that he informed Stalin about a plot to kill Stalin and install him as the leader. What did Stalin do? Killed his perceived competitor. Loyal or not, he was a threat. Same thing will happen here.
They think they'll be able to charm the socks for the dictators. It won't work; it never works. And as you said, they will be the first people led to the gallows.
To make a complex argument crude, being sufficiently woke is as helpful as a moat when the pitchforks come?
As a sad parallel to this: I worked with Newsom's team early in the pandemic on potential paths and responses. It became perfectly clear very early on that lots and lots of Latinos were going to die, and the reason wasn't only worse health and access to healthcare. Newsom's "diversity" on his staff consists of Latinx folks who went to Berkeley and UCLA and have very little to no understanding of what the life of a Latino in multigenerational living space in LA is like. They had no idea how to communicate to them, no idea how to help them, and no clue why they weren't simply magically doing the things all of their buddies from college would rationally do in response to the pandemic. 80% of the deaths in LA County are Latino, versus 48% of the population.
I live in a semi rural area in San Diego county, and can attest to the truth of what you describe. Folks need to understand that California has the highest poverty rate in the US, while also having among the highest cost of living. Poor people in CA have no choice but to live 3 and 4 generations together
"the highest poverty rate in the US, while also having among the highest cost of living"
Seems obvious put like this, doesn't it ?
It does, but it's more than this. California is a very business unfriendly. The state income tax is, I believe, the highest in the US (if not, it's no. 2 or 3). The middle class grows smaller as middle income earners move out of state to places like Texas with better job prospects and cost of living, as do many retirees looking for lower cost of living. The poor stay either because of family or because they can't afford to move. It's also interesting that we are starting to the some large silicon valley business moving or expanding out of state, such as Hewlett Packard Enterprise an Tesla. I've lived here my whole life, and will be moving when I retire. The direction of California is toward two classes - the very rich and the poor. It causes me pain to see what my beautiful state has become.
The big secret that no one is saying: HP, Tesla, etc are moving under cover of general issues with California, but the specific issue is Board diversity. CA already started requiring one woman on Boards, but starting end of 2021 it's a higher number of women and also need specific POC or LGBTQ. The people moving just don't want to change their boards just yet. Usually a CEO has been put in place by the board and Board changes put their job at risk. Board members obviously like their slots and don't want to lose them.
I'm not sure that's much of an issue with the silicon valley companies,. The issue I recall as mentioned by most of these companies is cost of llivifor thei g
Oops. Cost of living for their employees, especially the cost of housing. Cal is doing nothing to make housing affordable, just the opposite
Their diet plays a huge role. I lived directly next to a housing project for eight years (until quite recently) and saw first-hand how food stamps are spent. It should be illegal to use your food stamp allocation to buy more than 15% of sugar and trash foods, but it isn't. Therefore "food stamps" represent a transfer payment to Coca Cola Inc.
An ER doc I know says he regularly sees kids these days come in with massive GI distress from eating too much Flamin' Hot Cheetos.
I live in the Southwest and lived in SoCal. Latinos and Hispanics aren't living in housing projects in CA. They're living crowded into apartments and single family houses as rent is exorbitant. And many, esp elder, eat traditional staples. They are dying at higher rates all over the US, as are Native Americans and blacks.
I would start by blaming the agribusiness and city planning for that. How do you expect poor people to be able to eat well without a decently priced farmer's market within biking distance ?
Urban grocery stores have decent food, including some organic options, and it is possible to obtain a solid diet.
Farmer's markets don't take food stamps but there is a an urban farmer's market a 15-minute walk from the housing projects described above.
The problem is not access, it is policy. All these "progressive" mayors and governors really show their true stripes on this one. They don't care what poor people eat. If they did, they'd do something about it.
Meanwhile Coke and Monsanto keep raking it in on our tax dime.
Hmm, I thought that you were talking about one of those "food deserts". Are they actually just not that common in the USA, or were your neighbors just lucky ?
Thanks - and a question. Shouldn't we learn from China how to do fast mass Covid-19 (the "Trump" virus) vaccination? We are extremely slow -- it will take by new reports about 14 weeks to vaccinate priority groups. How possibly we can be so slow and disorganized. China vaccinates million plus people essentially overnight. Is anybody studying this -- how they can do it? Many thanks
Great question. US and China use different practices. Step one in the US is for a private company to spend more than $2B over twelve years before the first clinical dose can be taken. That's a result of ever-increasing demands from the FDA, that Trump spent four years fighting to get only a lowering of cost and shortage of length of time to bring new generics to market. Step one in China is that a government lab develops a medication and the government orders is manufactured and used.
China's vaccine is carried on an adenovirus so that it can infiltrate cells to prompt making antibodies. Adenoviruses are common cold viruses just like COVID19, they are just less contagious but create complications regardless of age. China tweaked a biowarfare weapon, an adenovirus carrying deadly infections, to carry bits of COVID19. If the patient has adenovirus antibodies from a prior cold, they will kill the vaccine. If the vaccine works, the first sign is usually symptoms that look exactly like COVID19.
US vaccines rely on messengerRNA, having no viruses at all. Much more expensive than China's vaccine to develop and manufacture, but far safer. Project Warp Speed was the first time in history that the FDA was part of the solution instead of part of the problem.
Logistics of mRNA vaccines are the hardest part. The science is relatively simple, every scientist to whom I've spoken concurs that the logistics are the hardest part. Our Federal form of government lets the central government manage delivery to the states to centers identified by the states. The planning was intense, very difficult, and pulled off well until states took possession. No US President has the authority to order state health departments what to do with the vaccines, and some states - noticeably California and NY, fucked it up. The Coronavirus Task Force and the CDC issued guidance, not orders, to the states. No change of name on the Oval Office will make this any different. My state, Tennessee, is vaccinating quickly without any wasted doses; NY had to destroy nearly half its vaccines.
I'm not a Trump supporter, I am a now-retired physician, guided by evidence. The COVID19 response by Trump was better than I could have hoped for. I don't like the guy, never voted for him, but this was a real success. Too bad you'll never read about it on Facespace or Whastwitinstagoogletube.
Thank you very very much. All in all -- US acted as a failed state. China has total of less than 5K dead -- we are now approaching that number daily.
After nine months we are still unprepared for mass vaccination. Moreover, we still don't information -- daily, weekly - by city, county -- how many people were vaccinated, percentage of total -- basic information. This is horrible incompetency for a country that wants to be "a shining example" and organizes coup after coup - to bring "democracy and freedom" (except in Saudi Arabia).
I never supported insane clown Trump but -- the rot appears to be MUCH deeper, starting with health for profit instead universal health care.
Once again, many thanks for your kind response. Stay well and my best regards, Boris
Boris, the nature of a federation is not well understood even among most US citizens. In 1776 thirteen sovereign nations surrendered a small part of their sovereignty to a central government, and wrote a constitution to keep power at the state level, closer to the people. The constitution was never written for efficiency, it was written for individual liberty. It contained many compromises, including two chambers of congress and the electoral college, to prevent the tyranny of either the majority or the federal government.
My friends in Europe and Asia point to how compliant their citizens are with government orders, never recalling that the U.S. was settled by people fleeing over-reaching governments. We don't have the submission gene built-in; we do have the freedom-to-dissent gene.
Compare annual deaths COVID19 to annual deaths from medical errors. Then recognize that a diagnosis of COVID19 and a cause of death of COVID19 are both rewarded financially, and you begin to squint. The cost of China's achieved efficiency was as many as 150M dead at the hands of authoritarian government during the 20th century. We can have another 149M plus die before paying the same cost.
Centralized control (like China) gets the details right and the big picture wrong. Democratic republics do the opposite. We have the big picture right but and drive the details off of profit motives or incompetent civil servants. Democracy needs to improve its candidate selection processes - right now it's resting on its laurels because it's good at its key innovation - ousting bad performers fairly quickly without blood, but it still hasn't learned how to pick good performers.
Don't understand your response. I asked:
How China organize and do almost overnight vaccination of more than a million people in one city? They must have tens of thousands teams and superb organization to be able to do that. I thought that you perhaps know details...
Occam's razor should make it obvious that the Chicoms didn’t vaccinate a million people in one city overnight and that they are simply lying about it. How would anyone know?
It helped that the virology institute in Wuhan was the center for Chinese biowarfare at least until a decade ago when I stopped following it. A couple tweaks to an existing bioweapon and presto, you've got a COVID vaccine. Tell the population when to be where to get the vaccine, and there's 100% compliance. Efficiency is one measurement and it considers only elapsed time and resources consumed. The end result and the means to get there are irrelevant, which is why professionals measure more than one aspect of a program.
I thought he answered it quite well...
The answer at ground level is that they have tens of thousands teams and superb organization. The answer at 30,000 feet is what I said.
US vaccinated almost 2 million with Salk's free polio jab and placebo, many of them kids, in one month in 1956. I think Americans under 40 have only seen our privatized, neolib systems. They cannot even envision a country with competent public logistics and citizen cooperation.
Lee, I surmise this crack down is timed so to create a backlash. Then Kamala, the corrupt DA[Jow is gone soon] can crack down. The problem is the people who are victims of the crack down are well armed and will not go quietly into the night. The left has restarted fighting the Civil War recently. Hardly a coincidence.
White supremacists have never *conceded* the fact that the union snd human rights won.
It's not white supremacists that you have to worry about, comrade.
Comrade yourself.
Interesting, did that appelation offend you?
Make you angry?
Oh no all two dozen of them are coming to getcha!
Emergency!! Call the Southern Poverty Law Center with their $471 Million endowment! Since there's no Poverty in the South that needs their attention, they can use it to round up active Neo-Nazis!!
spoken like an unreconstructed Confederate from a long line of Lost Cause Confedrates, Klan Kleages and Southern Democrat Jim Crow Enforcers.
Clearly it hasn't taken long for Parler's homeless to take refugee in Glenn World.
Give Ben health insurance now Glenn.
LOL! Born and bred Connecticut Yankee. Oh..and the Klan "don't cotton fucking Eyetalians!" Your unbridled anger is something you should deal with soon. I'm a longtime fan of Greenwald. I'm a true libertarian, you are a knee jerk liberal. Glenn is intellectually honest. You are neither.
Oh look it's TE again, hi TE. I hate Trump, and I'm not even American, but sure, all Trump supporters are KKK and all Democrats are communists.
Maybe this power will be turned around on them, or maybe they can use this power to permanently entrench their own power. It's a high stakes game of poker, playing with freedom chips, and the eventual winner takes all.
The true believers always end up on the receiving end with those they burnt down the forest of laws to get at, while the cynical opportunists end up in charge.
As a cynical opportunist, I hope you're right.
LOL
How? Who counts the votes, NoSuch?
Funny, those Ivy League schools were thrilled to be endowed by the slave shipping fortunes of the 17th and 18th centuries. No reparations, no "sorry", nothing.
Elihu who?
Well, they did raise a bunch of Useful Idiots, so.....
LOL
Scared is an understatement. Especially for liberals disenfranchised by their own party who voted for Trump. The only strategy is a bunker mentallity one. Stay low and incognito for the next four years or longer.
I don't have - or keep - people who believe like that as friends.
You need new friends.