Those whose worldview is bereft of universally applied principles, and based solely on tribal allegiances, assume everyone else is plagued by this very deficiency.
I have not read a more on-point description of the root of our problem than you've laid out here. Not just in journalism, as you said, but in everything, we have lazily discarded principles as just too damned hard and not nearly enough fun. The pretense that we just can't have principles right now, because "the stakes have never been higher", is especially vapid. Everything I don't like today is positively the worst ever.
We twist ourselves into deadly contortions trying to avoid Covid or defeat Trump or whatever's just simply the worst ever today. We used to know such thinking is crazy, and such thinkers are morons or liars.
The FBI is the real domestic terror organization in the USA.
Almost every time the FBI is involved, the real story isn't whatever we're being told it is, it is the FBI's role as an arm of the Anglo-American empire, whether it's grooming potential terrorists and using "informants" to organize terrorist incidents or to cracking down on groups and individuals who dare to oppose the powers that be.
We are a mess of a quickly disintegrating society for one key reason... the lack of consistent strongly applied principles of journalistic ethics. Everything else is just the results of standard human nature... people pursuing their own interests while constantly looking for the guideposts.
The media was meant to report on those guideposts and the people would largely stay within the lines of the national consensus derived from the media reporting.
At the very time our national morality was challenged by a POTUS that told his bald-faced lie "I did not have sexual relations with that woman (young intern name)"... and our population became plugged into a 24x7 media news cycle... our media sunk to the lowest levels of tabloid-ism. Then it sunk even deeper to the bowels of political progaganda.
We have met the enemy, and it is our mainstream corporate media. The only remaining question is how we defeat it and reform it back to the respectable profession it should be.
I just don't get why it's so controversial to even do that. Like when the Trump Russia stuff came out I was like ok, maybe it's true but show me the proof first. But then people would act like you were Trump's biggest fan if you took that attitude. And there are so many other examples. It's like we're living in bizarro world, or maybe there are a set of actors who know that they would be threatened by a neutral application of principles.
Glenn: More than any other piece you've written since starting on substack this one epitomizes why I subscribe. I've often complained that for too many people every damned thing has to be about politics and/or race. In a way the lack of principled thought and discussion is the other side of that coin. Especially when it comes to the law, most particularly constitutional law, the lack of principled consideration is a grave threat to our constitutional democratic republic. The end result is pure tyranny.
What has happened in the Project Veritas case is a almost as bad as it gets (but I know it can get worse). I have no doubt the DOJ/FBI action is primarily a political hit job. It appears to be a vehicle to dish on PV and O'Keefe by leaks to the NYT. Significantly, those leaks are unrelated to the purported purpose of the search warrants. i fail to see any lawful reason for federal action in the case, even if the diary was stolen. The federal Trafficking is Stolen Good law only applies to property worth $5,000 or more. I don't think anyone can plausibly argue this element has been met. Rather, the DOJ/FBI have once again shown their willingness to corruptly do the bidding for prominent Democrats, including the president of the United States.
I should add that some people wonder why folks like Kathleen Parker or this David Gregory jackhole call for the persecution of Julian Assange, yet they do not fear persecution themselves.
Such bootlickers sleep safely in their beds, because they will never write or utter or even think so much as a syllable that their corporate and governmental masters would not approve of.
Glen, I wholeheartedly agree and the reason I’ve followed you from Salon all the way to Substack is due to your unflagging adherence to first principles.
I feel like there may still be a segment of your readership who relish the abuse you have lately been heaping in the Dems and MSM. Rightly so. But I wonder if there’s an exercise we could do where we define a counterfactual example that requires a principled stance in order to keep in the back of peoples’ minds what it will look like when you go after someone in their team.
Maintenance of principled thinking needs to be exercised and everyone benefits from being shown from time to time where they might be cutting corners or simply enjoying the wind being taken from their enemies’ sails.
Please continue the hard work of permanent vigilance and honesty that many of us have come to rely on.
One of the problems with defining the sides in the ongoing culture war is that "the left" or "liberals" isn't an accurate description of the side the NYT is on -- a better description would be something like the "Inner Party." This faction of interested players works together to define what is legitimate, respectable, and permissible in Society. And these definitions are always for purposes of continuing their own wealth and power.
Their overt hypocrisy is due to their own sense of privilege -- they know they never have to follow the rules they set for others.
The NYT doesn't have to worry about having its files raided by the FBI. Rather, the NYT uses the FBI to raid other people's files and give the contents to the NYT.
Very well written and insightful - as per usual. Anyone who has seen the Rittenhouse trial and acoompanying videos - with any integrity or intelligence whatsoever - would not that he's a very good kid - and in fact, heroic. He DID go there to help and protect - and did more than many cops did that night. He showed tremendous restraint - and the only firing of his gun was in self-defense - as all video plainly shows - and the trial itself - blatantly reveals.
Without principle, we are doomed to the irrationality of tribalism fueled passions, and that has to stop - because the ruling elites will use secrtarian infighting as a ruse thru which to enact more totalitarian fascism.
Glenn, you didn't mention anything about how the NY Times had a heads up about the FBI raid on O'Keefe. And then a few days later, the NY Times as a series of stories where they opine about legal memos from Project Veritas lawyers that they somehow acquired.
Could it be that someone at the FBI leaked those files to the NY Times? Correct me if I am wrong, if that leak came from the FBI, I see two crimes there. One, the FBI employees recovering data from the Project Veritas computer drives are not supposed to be looking at materials not relevant to the crime at issue. They certainly should not be reading memos from legal counsel to a client. But they did read those memos...and then send it to the NY Times.
And Project Veritas is engaged in litigation with the NY Times. Do you suppose that advice from legal counsel concerning that litigation was leaked to the Times? I'd say that the NY Times should be in serious peril in that litigation. If I were legal counsel, I would want to depose anyone who worked on the stories published in the Times and any employee who handled those files to find out if attorney/client materials regarding the litigation were leaked.
The sad reality is that most media platforms have made the business decision to target (and pander to) an audience with a particular political viewpoint and agenda. Perhaps because of media fragmentation, they have mostly given up on the idea being a reliable news source to a broad audience. While this strategy obviously limits their addressable audience, it is cost effective, as the targeted audience often cares very little about the accuracy of their reporting, and instead just wants their ideological viewpoint reinforced. Genuine journalism is mostly disappearing.
Individuals make decisions and reach conclusions based on their "ethics": a framework of right and wrong, to put it very simply. I believe there are, essentially, two ethical frameworks: relationship based ethics and principle based ethics. I have been observing behavior using this dichotomy for nearly 25 years and conclude that, for the most part, people on the left side of the US political spectrum have relationship based ethics and people on the right have principle based ethics. The following examples illustrate what this "looks like".
When Obama won in 2008, I noticed about 20 reactions from my left wing friends. On Facebook, 19 of the 20 said, in some form or another, "We won, you lost". Only one of them mentioned that they were looking forward to "the good" they though Obama would do. Their evaluation of the results was described in terms of relationship. I contrast that to the 2010 mid terms when Republicans "shellacked" the Democrats. The overwhelming (35 out of 40) response from my conservative friends on FB was, in some form or another, "let's get things fixed". Their evaluation of the results was described in terms of principles. (I dropped FB after the 2012 elections.)
I see this same dynamic play out at least 70% of the time. So before Democrats/left wingers decide on a course of action the question they ask is "Will this course of action improve my relationship with others? (improve is used broadly and includes power in the relationship) Conversely, Republicans/right wingers ask themselves "Does this course of action align with my core values?"
So the left wingers leading the DoJ decide who to investigate by determining if such work will help their relationship with people they like or hurt people they don't like. In the case of Project Veritas, it's a "win win": it ingratiates them to POTUS and media, and hurts a political opponent.
This also explains why Dems have a nearly impossible time voting for a Repub, no matter how bad their candidate is. They simply cannot cast a vote for someone they don't "like"; an evaluation of their policies never enters the consideration.
While I wish I was independently wealthy and could go back to school and spend 5 years or so earning my PhD on proving this hypothesis, my analysis is based on many years of observation and not hard science. Yes, there are exceptions to my "rule" for individuals and for some specific behaviors, but, by and large, it seems to hold true.
I have long opined that perhaps the best definition of political Right vs political Left is Principles vs Tribes.
Many Lefties here won't like it (and are likely to misdefine the Right to weasel out of it), but it's true. Identity has always been at the center of left-wing thought, and the Left is also the camp that birthed moral relativism, subjective truth, and critical theory. It's tribalism all the way down, and it's always been tribalism.
To actually have principles, one has to believe in natural (or negative) rights and not so-called "positive rights", which cannot conceivably be universally applied.
Glenn asks the question why are the establishment "journalists" willing to rally against the other journalists, well the Democrat tribe is stronger than the journalist tribe. Of course this is simple, they aren't journalists, they are propagandists, bought and paid for POS.
I have not read a more on-point description of the root of our problem than you've laid out here. Not just in journalism, as you said, but in everything, we have lazily discarded principles as just too damned hard and not nearly enough fun. The pretense that we just can't have principles right now, because "the stakes have never been higher", is especially vapid. Everything I don't like today is positively the worst ever.
We twist ourselves into deadly contortions trying to avoid Covid or defeat Trump or whatever's just simply the worst ever today. We used to know such thinking is crazy, and such thinkers are morons or liars.
The FBI is the real domestic terror organization in the USA.
Almost every time the FBI is involved, the real story isn't whatever we're being told it is, it is the FBI's role as an arm of the Anglo-American empire, whether it's grooming potential terrorists and using "informants" to organize terrorist incidents or to cracking down on groups and individuals who dare to oppose the powers that be.
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2021/01/25/how-the-fbi-created-domestic-terrorism-80-years-of-psychological-warfare-revealed/
Can anyone read the above and not think the FBI needs to be shut down?
We are a mess of a quickly disintegrating society for one key reason... the lack of consistent strongly applied principles of journalistic ethics. Everything else is just the results of standard human nature... people pursuing their own interests while constantly looking for the guideposts.
The media was meant to report on those guideposts and the people would largely stay within the lines of the national consensus derived from the media reporting.
At the very time our national morality was challenged by a POTUS that told his bald-faced lie "I did not have sexual relations with that woman (young intern name)"... and our population became plugged into a 24x7 media news cycle... our media sunk to the lowest levels of tabloid-ism. Then it sunk even deeper to the bowels of political progaganda.
We have met the enemy, and it is our mainstream corporate media. The only remaining question is how we defeat it and reform it back to the respectable profession it should be.
Glenn, your clarity around "principles rather than personalities" is spot on and so sad.
I just don't get why it's so controversial to even do that. Like when the Trump Russia stuff came out I was like ok, maybe it's true but show me the proof first. But then people would act like you were Trump's biggest fan if you took that attitude. And there are so many other examples. It's like we're living in bizarro world, or maybe there are a set of actors who know that they would be threatened by a neutral application of principles.
Glenn: More than any other piece you've written since starting on substack this one epitomizes why I subscribe. I've often complained that for too many people every damned thing has to be about politics and/or race. In a way the lack of principled thought and discussion is the other side of that coin. Especially when it comes to the law, most particularly constitutional law, the lack of principled consideration is a grave threat to our constitutional democratic republic. The end result is pure tyranny.
What has happened in the Project Veritas case is a almost as bad as it gets (but I know it can get worse). I have no doubt the DOJ/FBI action is primarily a political hit job. It appears to be a vehicle to dish on PV and O'Keefe by leaks to the NYT. Significantly, those leaks are unrelated to the purported purpose of the search warrants. i fail to see any lawful reason for federal action in the case, even if the diary was stolen. The federal Trafficking is Stolen Good law only applies to property worth $5,000 or more. I don't think anyone can plausibly argue this element has been met. Rather, the DOJ/FBI have once again shown their willingness to corruptly do the bidding for prominent Democrats, including the president of the United States.
"This not-a-real-journalist tactic was and remains the primary theory used by those who justify the ongoing attempt to imprison Julian Assange."
As you are well aware, the First Amendment protects freedom of speech and of the press.
It says not a word about "journalists".
I should add that some people wonder why folks like Kathleen Parker or this David Gregory jackhole call for the persecution of Julian Assange, yet they do not fear persecution themselves.
Such bootlickers sleep safely in their beds, because they will never write or utter or even think so much as a syllable that their corporate and governmental masters would not approve of.
Glen, I wholeheartedly agree and the reason I’ve followed you from Salon all the way to Substack is due to your unflagging adherence to first principles.
I feel like there may still be a segment of your readership who relish the abuse you have lately been heaping in the Dems and MSM. Rightly so. But I wonder if there’s an exercise we could do where we define a counterfactual example that requires a principled stance in order to keep in the back of peoples’ minds what it will look like when you go after someone in their team.
Maintenance of principled thinking needs to be exercised and everyone benefits from being shown from time to time where they might be cutting corners or simply enjoying the wind being taken from their enemies’ sails.
Please continue the hard work of permanent vigilance and honesty that many of us have come to rely on.
One of the problems with defining the sides in the ongoing culture war is that "the left" or "liberals" isn't an accurate description of the side the NYT is on -- a better description would be something like the "Inner Party." This faction of interested players works together to define what is legitimate, respectable, and permissible in Society. And these definitions are always for purposes of continuing their own wealth and power.
Their overt hypocrisy is due to their own sense of privilege -- they know they never have to follow the rules they set for others.
The NYT doesn't have to worry about having its files raided by the FBI. Rather, the NYT uses the FBI to raid other people's files and give the contents to the NYT.
Very well written and insightful - as per usual. Anyone who has seen the Rittenhouse trial and acoompanying videos - with any integrity or intelligence whatsoever - would not that he's a very good kid - and in fact, heroic. He DID go there to help and protect - and did more than many cops did that night. He showed tremendous restraint - and the only firing of his gun was in self-defense - as all video plainly shows - and the trial itself - blatantly reveals.
Without principle, we are doomed to the irrationality of tribalism fueled passions, and that has to stop - because the ruling elites will use secrtarian infighting as a ruse thru which to enact more totalitarian fascism.
Glenn, you didn't mention anything about how the NY Times had a heads up about the FBI raid on O'Keefe. And then a few days later, the NY Times as a series of stories where they opine about legal memos from Project Veritas lawyers that they somehow acquired.
Could it be that someone at the FBI leaked those files to the NY Times? Correct me if I am wrong, if that leak came from the FBI, I see two crimes there. One, the FBI employees recovering data from the Project Veritas computer drives are not supposed to be looking at materials not relevant to the crime at issue. They certainly should not be reading memos from legal counsel to a client. But they did read those memos...and then send it to the NY Times.
And Project Veritas is engaged in litigation with the NY Times. Do you suppose that advice from legal counsel concerning that litigation was leaked to the Times? I'd say that the NY Times should be in serious peril in that litigation. If I were legal counsel, I would want to depose anyone who worked on the stories published in the Times and any employee who handled those files to find out if attorney/client materials regarding the litigation were leaked.
The sad reality is that most media platforms have made the business decision to target (and pander to) an audience with a particular political viewpoint and agenda. Perhaps because of media fragmentation, they have mostly given up on the idea being a reliable news source to a broad audience. While this strategy obviously limits their addressable audience, it is cost effective, as the targeted audience often cares very little about the accuracy of their reporting, and instead just wants their ideological viewpoint reinforced. Genuine journalism is mostly disappearing.
Individuals make decisions and reach conclusions based on their "ethics": a framework of right and wrong, to put it very simply. I believe there are, essentially, two ethical frameworks: relationship based ethics and principle based ethics. I have been observing behavior using this dichotomy for nearly 25 years and conclude that, for the most part, people on the left side of the US political spectrum have relationship based ethics and people on the right have principle based ethics. The following examples illustrate what this "looks like".
When Obama won in 2008, I noticed about 20 reactions from my left wing friends. On Facebook, 19 of the 20 said, in some form or another, "We won, you lost". Only one of them mentioned that they were looking forward to "the good" they though Obama would do. Their evaluation of the results was described in terms of relationship. I contrast that to the 2010 mid terms when Republicans "shellacked" the Democrats. The overwhelming (35 out of 40) response from my conservative friends on FB was, in some form or another, "let's get things fixed". Their evaluation of the results was described in terms of principles. (I dropped FB after the 2012 elections.)
I see this same dynamic play out at least 70% of the time. So before Democrats/left wingers decide on a course of action the question they ask is "Will this course of action improve my relationship with others? (improve is used broadly and includes power in the relationship) Conversely, Republicans/right wingers ask themselves "Does this course of action align with my core values?"
So the left wingers leading the DoJ decide who to investigate by determining if such work will help their relationship with people they like or hurt people they don't like. In the case of Project Veritas, it's a "win win": it ingratiates them to POTUS and media, and hurts a political opponent.
This also explains why Dems have a nearly impossible time voting for a Repub, no matter how bad their candidate is. They simply cannot cast a vote for someone they don't "like"; an evaluation of their policies never enters the consideration.
While I wish I was independently wealthy and could go back to school and spend 5 years or so earning my PhD on proving this hypothesis, my analysis is based on many years of observation and not hard science. Yes, there are exceptions to my "rule" for individuals and for some specific behaviors, but, by and large, it seems to hold true.
I have long opined that perhaps the best definition of political Right vs political Left is Principles vs Tribes.
Many Lefties here won't like it (and are likely to misdefine the Right to weasel out of it), but it's true. Identity has always been at the center of left-wing thought, and the Left is also the camp that birthed moral relativism, subjective truth, and critical theory. It's tribalism all the way down, and it's always been tribalism.
To actually have principles, one has to believe in natural (or negative) rights and not so-called "positive rights", which cannot conceivably be universally applied.
Glenn asks the question why are the establishment "journalists" willing to rally against the other journalists, well the Democrat tribe is stronger than the journalist tribe. Of course this is simple, they aren't journalists, they are propagandists, bought and paid for POS.