Some valued readers objected to my views on the ominous new mood of the American social media censors. They believe the powers-that-be are in real retreat, having been damaged by recent setbacks like the Budweiser boycott, Tucker Carlson’s wild success on Twitter, awkward censorship revelations, Trump’s strong polling and other things too. They gently suggest I am overthinking things.
Agreed Eugyppius. The forces of tyranny are unrelenting, and currently have no small degree of momentum. Inroads may have been made in slowing their roll, but I still have not quite reached a state of even cautious optimism. Our current state of affairs should be proof that the past 40 years have been a largely one sided push to the edge of a cliff for western society. Can we save it at this point? I'm not so sure.
I agree with Eugyppius. The confidence of the elites in the robustness of their position means they can easily tolerate the Tucker Carlsons of this world. It allows them to claim there is a plurality of voices and that free speech is alive and well. While obviously ignoring the huge power disparity and ‘credibility’ gap of those voices. ie ‘ Tucker Carlson is a right wing conspiracy nut so his voice doesn’t count and anyone who listens to him is also suspect, and a fool. ‘
And that's the entire reason why this game of capture has been so rapt with manic insanity. If it were your money and property at stake, and your only religion is greed, what would you do?
I take your point. But I think they are tolerating him. They haven’t silenced Tucker. They have just removed him from a platform that has ‘legitimacy’ to one that doesn’t. (From their point of view) Essentially he has gone from a version of the church pulpit to shouting in a corner of the village square. It doesn’t matter if people are still listening to him. He is now an ‘outsider’ so they can dismiss him as irrelevant. Here in the uk they don’t need to deny a lockdown sceptic a voice, they just need to keep them off the BBC. They can say what they like. As long as it’s not on a ‘proper’ platform it doesn’t matter.
But they are not ignoring him at all, they are still trying to shut him up. Prior to Tucker's "firing" Fox was the highest rated news network. Since he was cancelled MSNBC out rated Fox for the first time in 10 years. It's not just Tuckers time slot that has lost ratings the entire network has suffered.
I don't know how things work in the UK but here the states you absolutely don't need "legitimacy" to be taken seriously, just ask Joe Rogan.
Yes. I think we are just talking at cross purposes. There was an article which referred to Joe Rogan in an English newspaper this week. Despite him being the biggest podcaster in the world the photo they chose and how they depicted him, made him out to be a buffoon. They are ‘shutting up’ these people by saying if you are not on our platforms you don’t count. And the rest of the media etc seems to go along with that. Maybe it matters that Tucker gets more views than Fox. But to them it doesn’t. That’s all I’m saying. My point is to ask- do viewers matter if you own and control the landscape?. I’m not sure. You might have the viewers but they definitely control the narrative. Best to you Sharon.
Doesn't that make the English newspaper a rag? It's pathetic really Rogan's influence so vastly exceeds, whatever publication this was (it doesn't even matter what paper it was Rogan's audience and influence exceeds theirs). Where does this notion of legitimacy even come from?
It sounds like you've given up. I don't know how things are in the UK but there's not a lot that here in the US. Though I'll admit it feels like an up hill battle.
The elites can dismiss him all they like, but the "legitimacy" of their platforms are ultimately dependent on the audience. FOX took an enormous ratings hit when they fired Tucker, and its viewers didn't go to CNN or MSNBC. They followed Tucker to the village square.
That’s true Danno. But my point is that the MSM is the only ‘real’ platform according to the people in charge. Which gives them the power to dismiss everyone else. I’m not saying Tuckers millions of viewers don’t count. They are.. Fox surely knew they would take a massive hit to viewers when they let Tucker go. But it didn’t stop them. They’re not idiots. So why did they do it? Well they were obviously getting something out of it. I’d suggest they want to become a more ‘mainstream’ channel. Because that gives them power and legitimacy. It brings them ‘inside the tent’. But it’s a subtle point and I’m not saying I’m 100% right, it’s just a point of view.
Noam Chomsky, the Marxist professor of linguistics who wanted all of the unvaccinated to die once had this to say about how consent is manufactured by the real powers behind the illusion of governance. When he believed his Marxist ideals were on the outside looking in. Now that his ideals are on the inside…the outsiders need to die. Nonetheless, we can and must always learn from our adversaries when they have something to teach us. I believe these excerpts help us to understand that which eugyppius is discussing:
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, 1989 (Speech)
(Must split into three comments, continuation in comments below)
(1/3)
"All of these operations were completely illegal. There was a Congressional report done on them- General- GAO report, which simply pointed out that of course they’re illegal — they were run out of the National Security Council, and, not allowed to propagandize Americans. But it was very successful. When this was exposed during the Iran-Contra hearings, one top administration official described the activities of the Office of Public Diplomacy as one of their really great achievements. It was a, he said, a spectacular success. He described it as the kind of operation that you carry out in enemy territory. And that’s quite an appropriate phrase. I think the phrase expresses exactly the way in which the public is viewed by people with power: it’s an enemy, it’s a domestic enemy, and you got to keep it under control, and you have to make sure that the mysteries are not revealed, so that the people don’t become so curious and arrogant that they refuse to submit to a civil rule, to put it in 17th Century terms. And to control that domestic enemy, propaganda and fabrications, and so on, are important, and that’s what the public relations industry is for, for corporate purposes, and what the media are for if they properly serve the State."
...
"If you go back to the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences published in 1933 — days when people were a little more open and honest in what they said — there’s an article on propaganda, and it’s well worth reading. There’s an entry under propaganda. The entry is written by a leading- one- maybe the leading American political scientist, Harold Lasswell, who was very influential, particularly in this area, communications, and so on. And in this entry in the International Encyclopedia on propaganda he says, we should not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests. They’re not, he said. Even with the rise of mass education- doesn’t mean that people can judge their own interests. They can’t. The best judges of their interests are elites — the specialized class, the cool observers, the people who have rationality — and therefore they must be granted the means to impose their will. Notice, for the common good. Because, again, because- well, he says, because of the ignorance and superstition of the masses, he said it’s necessary to have a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda. Propaganda, he says, we shouldn’t have a negative connotation about, it’s neutral. Propaganda, he says, is as neutral as a pump handle. You can use it for good, you can use it for bad; since were good people, obviously, — that’s sort of true by definition — we’ll use it for good purposes, and there should be no negative connotations about that. In fact, it’s moral to use it, because that’s the only way that you can save the ignorant and stupid masses of the population from their own errors. You don’t let a three year old run across the street, and you don’t let ordinary people make their own decisions. You have to control them.
And why do you need propaganda? Well, he explains that. He says, in military-run or feudal societies — what we would these days call totalitarian societies — you don’t really need propaganda that much. And the reason is you’ve got a- you’ve got a club in your hand. You can control the way people behave, and therefore it doesn’t matter much what they think, because if they get out of line you can control them — for their own good, of course. But once you lose the club, you know, once the State loses its capacity to coerce by force, then you have some problems. The voice of the people is heard — you’ve got all these formal mechanisms around that permit people to express themselves, and even participate, and vote, and that sort of thing — and you can’t control them by force, because you’ve lost that capacity. But the voice of the people is heard, and therefore you’ve got to make sure it says the right thing. And in order to make sure it says the right thing, you’ve got to have effective and sophisticated propaganda, again, for their own good.
So in a- as a society becomes more free — that is, there’s less capacity to coerce — it simply needs more sophisticated indoctrination and propaganda. For the public good.
The similarity between this and Leninist ideology is very striking. According to Leninist ideology, the cool observers, the radical intelligentsia, will be the vanguard who will lead the stupid and ignorant masses on to, you know, communist utopia, because they’re too stupid to work it out by themselves.
And in fact there’s been a very easy transition over these years between one and the other position. You know, it’s very striking that continually people move from one position to the other, very easily. And I think the reason for the ease is partly because they’re sort of the same position. So you can be either a Marxist-Leninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating the magnificence of State capitalism, and you can serve those guys. It’s more or less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of where power is, and that can change.
The- and in fact the mainstream of the intelligentsia, I think over the last, say, through this century, have tended to be in one or the other camp. Either- there’s this strong appeal of Marxism-Leninism to the intelligentsia, for obvious reasons — I don’t have to bother saying. And there’s the same appeal of these doctrines to the intelligentsia, because it puts them in the position of justifying- of having a justified role as ideological managers, in the service of real power, corporate/State power. For the public good, of course. So you naturally are tempted to one or the other position."
"The- a presidential- well-known historian, presidential historian, Thomas Baily, explained in 1948, that because the masses are notoriously short-sighted, and generally cannot see danger until it is at their throats, our statesmen are forced to deceive them into an awareness of their own long-run interests. Deception of the people may, in fact, become increasingly necessary, unless we are willing to give our leaders in Washington a freer hand.
In other words, if we continue this nonsense of trying to control them through elections, and that sort of thing, it’s going to be necessary to have deception of the people, because the masses are too stupid and ignorant to understand the danger that’s at their throat. And that’s the role of the media, to carry out the appropriate deception."
"The- but now this crisis of democracy had erupted. What had happened was, during the 1960s all sorts of segments of the population that are normally apathetic and passive and obedient and don’t get in the way, began to become organized and vocal and raise questions and press their demands in the political arena, and that caused an overload. That caused a crisis of democracy. You couldn’t just govern the country with a few Wall Street lawyers and bankers any longer, you had all these other pressures coming from the general population, and that’s a problem. And we’ve got to overcome the problem. And the way to overcome the problem, they said, all three- the whole group, is to introduce more moderation in democracy to mitigate the excess of democracy. That means, in short, to return the general population to their apathy and passivity, and the obedience which becomes them. That’s the stupid and ignorant masses have to be kept out of trouble, and when you get these crises of democracy, you’ve got to restore the norm, what we had before.
Well, that’s a view that goes right back to the origins of the republic. If you read the sayings of the founding fathers, you will discover that that was essentially their view as well. They also regarded the public as a dangerous threat. The way the country ought to be organized, as John Jay put it, the president of the constitutional convention and the first supreme court- chief justice of the supreme court, his- one of his favorite maxims, according to his biographer, was that those who run- those who own the country ought to govern it. And if they can’t govern it by force, they’ve got to govern it in another way, and that ultimately requires deception, propaganda, indoctrination, the manufacture of consent."
...
"The- but now this crisis of democracy had erupted. What had happened was, during the 1960s all sorts of segments of the population that are normally apathetic and passive and obedient and don’t get in the way, began to become organized and vocal and raise questions and press their demands in the political arena, and that caused an overload. That caused a crisis of democracy. You couldn’t just govern the country with a few Wall Street lawyers and bankers any longer, you had all these other pressures coming from the general population, and that’s a problem. And we’ve got to overcome the problem. And the way to overcome the problem, they said, all three- the whole group, is to introduce more moderation in democracy to mitigate the excess of democracy. That means, in short, to return the general population to their apathy and passivity, and the obedience which becomes them. That’s the stupid and ignorant masses have to be kept out of trouble, and when you get these crises of democracy, you’ve got to restore the norm, what we had before.
Well, that’s a view that goes right back to the origins of the republic. If you read the sayings of the founding fathers, you will discover that that was essentially their view as well. They also regarded the public as a dangerous threat. The way the country ought to be organized, as John Jay put it, the president of the constitutional convention and the first supreme court- chief justice of the supreme court, his- one of his favorite maxims, according to his biographer, was that those who run- those who own the country ought to govern it. And if they can’t govern it by force, they’ve got to govern it in another way, and that ultimately requires deception, propaganda, indoctrination, the manufacture of consent."
...
"The- but now this crisis of democracy had erupted. What had happened was, during the 1960s all sorts of segments of the population that are normally apathetic and passive and obedient and don’t get in the way, began to become organized and vocal and raise questions and press their demands in the political arena, and that caused an overload. That caused a crisis of democracy. You couldn’t just govern the country with a few Wall Street lawyers and bankers any longer, you had all these other pressures coming from the general population, and that’s a problem. And we’ve got to overcome the problem. And the way to overcome the problem, they said, all three- the whole group, is to introduce more moderation in democracy to mitigate the excess of democracy. That means, in short, to return the general population to their apathy and passivity, and the obedience which becomes them. That’s the stupid and ignorant masses have to be kept out of trouble, and when you get these crises of democracy, you’ve got to restore the norm, what we had before.
Well, that’s a view that goes right back to the origins of the republic. If you read the sayings of the founding fathers, you will discover that that was essentially their view as well. They also regarded the public as a dangerous threat. The way the country ought to be organized, as John Jay put it, the president of the constitutional convention and the first supreme court- chief justice of the supreme court, his- one of his favorite maxims, according to his biographer, was that those who run- those who own the country ought to govern it. And if they can’t govern it by force, they’ve got to govern it in another way, and that ultimately requires deception, propaganda, indoctrination, the manufacture of consent."
"Now, the way the media work, there are some media which kind of set the agenda, you know, the most important ones, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, big national media, they set the agenda. If the government wants a story to get into television that evening, what it does is leak it to get into the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times, on the assumption that television will pick it up and say, ok that’s important, so we’ll give it the front news. The same is true of national television. It sets- it sets the agenda that makes people think. The New York Times front page is sent over the wire services the afternoon of the day before — there is a thing, if you read the- you know, you look at that stuff that’s ground out of the AP wire, you’ll notice around four o’clock comes something that says, The New York Times front page tomorrow is going to look like so-and-so. Well, if you’re an editor of a journal in some small town, you read it and you say, oh, that’s what the important news is, and you frame your own reporting that way. Now, you know, it’s not, sort of, a hundred percent, but there is a kind of an agenda setting media — New York Times, Washington Post, the three television channels, a few others that participate to some extent in this.
Well, ask yourself what those institutions are. Answer: those institutions are first of all major corporations, some of the biggest corporations in the country. Furthermore, they’re integrated with, and in many cases owned by, even larger corporations, you know, like General Electric, and so on. So what you have is major corporations and conglomerates. Now, like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market in this case is advertisers; that’s what keeps them alive. The product is audiences. They sell audiences to advertisers. In fact for the major media, they try to sell privileged audiences to advertisers. That raises advertising rates, and those are the people they’re trying to reach anyway."
...
"Now, the way the media work, there are some media which kind of set the agenda, you know, the most important ones, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, big national media, they set the agenda. If the government wants a story to get into television that evening, what it does is leak it to get into the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times, on the assumption that television will pick it up and say, ok that’s important, so we’ll give it the front news. The same is true of national television. It sets- it sets the agenda that makes people think. The New York Times front page is sent over the wire services the afternoon of the day before — there is a thing, if you read the- you know, you look at that stuff that’s ground out of the AP wire, you’ll notice around four o’clock comes something that says, The New York Times front page tomorrow is going to look like so-and-so. Well, if you’re an editor of a journal in some small town, you read it and you say, oh, that’s what the important news is, and you frame your own reporting that way. Now, you know, it’s not, sort of, a hundred percent, but there is a kind of an agenda setting media — New York Times, Washington Post, the three television channels, a few others that participate to some extent in this.
Well, ask yourself what those institutions are. Answer: those institutions are first of all major corporations, some of the biggest corporations in the country. Furthermore, they’re integrated with, and in many cases owned by, even larger corporations, you know, like General Electric, and so on. So what you have is major corporations and conglomerates. Now, like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market in this case is advertisers; that’s what keeps them alive. The product is audiences. They sell audiences to advertisers. In fact for the major media, they try to sell privileged audiences to advertisers. That raises advertising rates, and those are the people they’re trying to reach anyway."
...
"Now, the way the media work, there are some media which kind of set the agenda, you know, the most important ones, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, big national media, they set the agenda. If the government wants a story to get into television that evening, what it does is leak it to get into the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times, on the assumption that television will pick it up and say, ok that’s important, so we’ll give it the front news. The same is true of national television. It sets- it sets the agenda that makes people think. The New York Times front page is sent over the wire services the afternoon of the day before — there is a thing, if you read the- you know, you look at that stuff that’s ground out of the AP wire, you’ll notice around four o’clock comes something that says, The New York Times front page tomorrow is going to look like so-and-so. Well, if you’re an editor of a journal in some small town, you read it and you say, oh, that’s what the important news is, and you frame your own reporting that way. Now, you know, it’s not, sort of, a hundred percent, but there is a kind of an agenda setting media — New York Times, Washington Post, the three television channels, a few others that participate to some extent in this.
Well, ask yourself what those institutions are. Answer: those institutions are first of all major corporations, some of the biggest corporations in the country. Furthermore, they’re integrated with, and in many cases owned by, even larger corporations, you know, like General Electric, and so on. So what you have is major corporations and conglomerates. Now, like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market in this case is advertisers; that’s what keeps them alive. The product is audiences. They sell audiences to advertisers. In fact for the major media, they try to sell privileged audiences to advertisers. That raises advertising rates, and those are the people they’re trying to reach anyway."
...
"NOAM CHOMSKY: because the United States is a much freer- in fact the- what I’ve said about the United States, and I’ll say it again, it’s in many ways the freest society in the world. Sure there’s repression here, but it’s also a, by comparative standards, a very free society. In fact I think that’s one of the reasons it has such sophisticated thought control, as I tried to explain.
The capacity of the- the capacity of the State to coerce in the United States is relatively limited. You’re quite right that there’s plenty of oppression. I mentioned the FBI, which is the national political police, which is dedicated to oppression. That’s its job. It’s been doing it ever since it was founded. Well, you know, that’s inconsistent with the free society. But, again, by comparative standards, remember I’m talking about comparative standards, the United States is quite a free society. The capacity of the State to coerce, I think, is limited, probably- more so than any other society I know at least. So I don’t think that it would be correct to call it a dungeon."
...
"If you could get to the point where voting is simply the matter- a matter of selecting purely symbolic figures, then you would have gone a long way towards marginalizing the public. And that pretty well happened in the last eight years. You know, you had somebody who probably didn’t know what the policies were. His job was to read the lines rich- written for him by the rich folk — what he’s been doing for the last thirty or forty years. And he seems to enjoy it and he gets well paid for it, and everybody seems happy, but to vote for Ronald Reagan is like voting for the Queen of England. And that’s an advance.
I don’t really mean this as a joke, I think that’s an advance, you know, it’s progress in marginalizing the public. Part of marginalizing the public is, taking the formal mechanisms of participation which exist, and ensuring that they don’t lead to a crisis of democracy by being substantive. And what better method can you think of that simply reducing them to the selection of symbolic figures. I think that happened, and I think the press hasn’t covered it, though they doubtless know it."
...
"When does the government resort to covert activities? Well, typically, when the domestic enemy doesn’t allow it to carry out the activities in public. That’s when a government resorts to clandestine activities. Clandestine activities are difficult, complex, expensive, they carry the danger of being exposed. It’s much easier and more efficient to carry out violent activities overtly. And a government typically, our government in particular, when it resorts to clandestine activities, it’s usually because it’s afraid of the public."
...
"In fact if you look at what Lenin wrote after that period, or did, you’ll find it’s a reversion to the earlier position. This sort of left deviation, is that, a deviation. You could ask why. In my view it was just opportunistic. He knew that in order to gain power he was going to have to go along with the popular currents that were developing, which were, in fact, spontaneous and libertarian and socialist, as most popular movements are, have been, in fact, since the 17th century. And being an astute politician, which he was, he sort of went along with that, and talked the line that the people wanted to hear. It’s just like when an American politician goes somewhere, and his pollsters tell him, say so and so, he says it. It doesn’t mean he believes it. And I think Lenin was doing the same thing without polls."
Who could answer it? Only time will tell. Experience tells me that returning to even a pre-pandemic world won't happen. The collective horror that was imposed upon all of us has changed our social norms and ideals, and short of something truly revolutionary occurring, we don't go back. Stalling the "transformation" (Obama's promise) is likely the best we can do.
It will be moving forward in a different way that will set things on a better axis. We need to let go of what was, even though there was a lot of good there, because they were already well into prepping their game. We need to go forward in a new and much stronger way, each of us personally. Maybe it will involve moving through our long-standing obstacles, the things that always held us back. We have nothing to lose in doing these personal transformations and a lot to lose if we don't.
Much of the world system and globalism has been put forward to support the Americans desire to establish a direct defense against Soviet Russia and communism, as that threat has receded largely since 1990 the reason for the system has cease to exist. In the vacuum many people try to come in and create other belief systems to justify the status quo, people are realizing now there is no justification as the world has changed. We will see what comes next!
"[T]heoretical limits" are like the ‘science’ fantasy poison injected into our neighbors’ veins - or moving on to defending 'freedom' on the south Donetsk front, or toxic orange Martian atmosphere in Manhattan - whether Eugyppius meant that specifically, we know such utter scoundrels will always push their limits ... from one lethal three card monty game to the next.
Any lawyers involved in the election fiascos of 2000 & 2004 (on either side) get the joke of the 'literal' view of democracy in American politics. I’ll certainly never forget it.
The reason I'm a little (well, entirely) scornful of works of philosophy and political thought is because human nature cannot be altered, and cooperative systems that might work in small related groups always start failing once you get to bigger groups that must create artificial, constructed relationships to hold themselves together. No one can engineer a utopia, and benevolent monarchal systems (as you discussed in a previous post) require not having a moron as one's hereditary leader. Odds always run against you.
And even tiny related (by blood or common interests and cultural values) often become tiny despotic regimes too. People do love their titles and the privileges that come with them and they fight with remarkable ferocity to hold them, no matter how ridiculously trivial they are in the scheme of village life.
And none of us want to give up whatever purported entitlements the regimes dole out to us, and them regimes make it so expensive to try that it's really a fool's game anyway to opt out. Shortly after qualifying for Medicare I had a silly household accident resulting in a sprained ankle, fractured foot and gashed forehead, and even though I merely spent a night in an emergency bay rather than having been formally admitted, the bill for sewing up my forehead and giving me a dinosaur boot to hobble home with came to more than $30,000, and I was pretty relieved, between Medicare and the supplemental insurance policy I had, to have therefore owed $0 out of pocket. But obviously it's a complete scam system between the "healthcare" providers and the government. And even if, say, I'd not had insurance and negotiated a lower cash payment bill, I don't have that cash. They got our necks in that noose and keep wringing 'em.
We need to stop believing in political heroes, hone our skepticism till it's razor sharp and never let it get rusty, and do the best we can. Someone always always wants power and they will always be corrupted by it.
The attempt to craft a system of governance that pits those with political power against one another as a way to limit the natural inclination towards welding power excessively was a brilliant one. That commerce had managed to overshadow such a system in less than a hundred years was acknowledged by Abraham Lincoln when he claimed to fear the bankers even more than the Southern rebel army. The oligarchic class needs to be defanged of its corrosive power before we will be able to realize the potential for freedom, liberty, and justice that the American national architects envisioned.
Excellent comment. That's pretty much my political philosophy in a nutshell. Eventually, every system created by humans will end up being gamed and corrupted. We have Neolithic hunter-gatherer brains trying to survive in a 21st century world. We're designed to live in groups of <100.
There's really no way to win. It's pure luck for good or ill, the era one's born in.
Maybe the worst thing all the smart intellectuals did, starting with those awful French writers, was to demonize the middle class and its tastes and aspirations. Considering all the alternatives, to have a middle-class lifestyle is pretty damn good. It's as ideal as life can get. The people who made normal middle-class kids feel ashamed of who they were and the pretty much universal values of that class did a great evil. Here's hoping Flaubert ended up in a pretty bad place for the term necessary to have had him recognize and repent for his crimes, in the cosmic scheme of things. Metaphorically speaking of course.
Quick comment from Australia, here one of the main political parties is founded on the ideas and aspirations of the middle class, of course they got corrupted and abandoned that and now are the Marxist-lite "opposition" to the full far left Marxist Labor regime in power here. So we have the fiction of a multi-party system.
But I'm surprised Eugyppius doesn't mention the role of culture. I've just returned from Vietnam, which Wikipedia assures me is "totalitarian socialist" country. I've never seen so much capitalism and social order in my life. They threw out the globalists in 1975. And the culture is based on ancestor worship, before doing anything people ask themselves "what would Grandpa think of me if I did that?" Seems to me we can still obtain a measure of redemption by a return to traditional values
That "traditional values" thingy is a real minefield. I'm quite sure many of my own choices grieved the ancestors considerably but in the cosmic scheme of things they may feel, as I do, that all my idiocies were in service of an ultimately miraculous outcome.
We all individually do have the right, I think, to act as we feel is right though loved ones and society may disagree.
Yes but how do you make a "society" out of that? Individuals all acting out what they think is right is the jungle. Seems to me that the ancient rules "thou shall not...etc" served us pretty well for many centuries. Today we are told that everybody creates their own reality through how they "feel" about something. 2 + 2 can equal 5, if you "feel" it does. Men can have babies. In other words, chaos
All society-making requires crushing of the heretic, however one defines the word. My country was founded by people who refused to be crushed by their home societies and fled here (where of course many of them did their damnedest to try and crush dissenters in their midst....).
We've just barely survived a Plague Era defined by all the "thou shall nots" self-appointed Higher Authorities tried to jam down our throats. It wasn't pretty, was it?
And as I understand, Vietnam was pretty authoritarian in that regard. Sort of like Australia, and considerable parts of the US. None of us reading this Substack liked that at all.
This is one of those part truths that becomes a tragic lie when misused.
While from the zoomed out, big picture view it is certainly realistic and correct to say that “you can’t change human nature”, it is also importantly true that from the small level of the individual, one absolutely can fight the good fight to elevate and ennoble one’s nature over time and through experience.
Maybe as things collapse under the karmic weight of ten billion ignoble choices and the rotten forms which develop from out of these choices, there will be space for many to weave the profound insights such painful experiences bring into the fabric of their souls, so that these ennoblements become a part of the warp and weft of the next era, whenever that comes.
Yes, this is true. But, regarding government vs. people, nothing has ever changed. Man's human nature is self, which has been consistent throughout history. No government has ever been self-sacrificing or for the people. Once in power over others the first consideration on any matter is how to stay in power.
The evaluation requires the consent of the family. Once chosen the family moves to the capital and they are given land and titles. "Stealing toddlers" does not in any way reflect how any party involved feels about the process.
But not in the Tibetan vernacular. In Tibet the whole family considered it to be both an honor and a privilege, but if you disagree and want to be outraged on their behalf that's your prerogative.
The presence of all these powerful and dangerous wolves blinds almost everybody for the real underlying issue: the abundance of sheep. Nobody is pointing at the 80% or more among us that have turned into absolute sheep. But it is these sheep that are the one and only source of the power of the wolves everybody is tunnel visioning on. Without this insane super majority of hapless trusting sleep-walking sheep none of all these lunatic and catastrophic developments would be possible. In my wider family Im the only one who is skeptical towards the media and the government, let alone global organizations like the WHO. Every single family member except me thinks the lockdown and the mass vaccination helped, and that climate change needs us all to sacrifice our first born. Because their TV tells them so. Thats it. The media have become their new uber church, a church more powerful than any church in history.
Agree. The on-all-day TV is ubiquitous -- just walk after dark and the glowing, annoying, flickering images can be seen in almost every family room and now living room. Huge, mesmerizing, hypnotic screens with "all the news that's fit to spew."
It's discouraging to try to talk to formerly sensible people, religious and conservative, who are unaware of what is really going on, and will resent it if you hint that there is more to the story.
It's definitely discouraging, so I'm trying any and every tactic to break through the "wall" people have allowed to accumulate one grain of sand at a time these last few years as they've let rivers of water flow over them as they sat in place...
Check out James Pennebaker and the Expressive Writing Paradigm. His research, which was replicated so often that it became a paradigm, also shows you get immune benefits from doing this. It also helps to write something down and slip it into the crack of a wall, or get paper that biodegrades and throw it in the river. All of the simple solutions are always given no attention, like music for organizing one's comprehension.
And yet people believe this stuff all the time. I can only marvel at their power to shape the narrative. For instance Lockdowns were clearly and empirically a stupid idea which have caused untold and obvious damage to our societies. And yet people still accept that they were imposed in good faith, and that overall they were a successful policy. It’s nuts!
Jun 18, 2023·edited Jun 18, 2023Liked by eugyppius
The unspoken assumption here is that we should want government representative of the popular will.
This is the democratic fallacy, the idea that when you take a bunch of dumb proles and try to average out what they believe, this will result in something sensible through some sort of mysterious alchemical transmutation that's never expounded upon.
The general pattern I notice with "populist" movements is that they just settle on policies that favor the short-term interests of middle-aged indigenous working class people, or at least what those people (often mistakenly) imagine to be in their own short-term interest.
These same populist movements were very eager in the Netherlands to have a total lockdown back in march 2020 and attacked the prime minister, for not literally prohibiting people from leaving their homes.
The problem is not that our failing political system doesn't represent the will of the people. No, the problem is that it does represent their will. When you look online it's easy to get the impression that it doesn't, because angry people are more eager to spew their verbal diarrhea online.
But at the end of the day, you're basically getting what the general population wants.
Note, this is also true for the vaccination campaign and subsequent pariah status for the unvaccinated. That's what the average person wanted. You had a bunch of weird nerds online who insisted it wasn't going to work, but they were a fringe minority. The average prole wanted a vaccine, so they got a vaccine. The average prole wanted to be protected from the unvaccinated, so they were. It now looks like it was all some sort of elitist project forced down on people, because the consensus has quietly changed and nobody is going to publicly say now that they asked for this.
well, I don't mean to reinforce this assumption at all, though I think a system which directly reflected popular demands would be superior to what we have now. but, such a system would be almost immediately subverted in the ways that ours has been, and even if it could be sustained, would give rise to many other pathologies.
you know what the average prole believes? I doubt even dumb people like to be lied to and pushed around by people who pretend to have their best interests at heart
I bounce back and forth between agreeing with you and thinking a systemic issue is corrupting the will of the people. Let's say the people were given accurate information about the vaccines, do you really think they would've wanted it and would have wanted to ostracize everyone who didn't take it?
I don't thinks it's as simple as you've made it out to be.
I'm no brainchild, but smelling a whole nest of rats, I knew the information given was contrary to things I've known most of my life. Common sense told me everything was happening too fast. I figured I'd wait and see for a while and do my own research. No "safety" data was forthcoming, and there was no evidence of "effectiveness", as many people I knew who got the jabs were falling ill. The holier-than-thou mainstream media talking heads sickeningly parroted one another. It was so idiotically scripted. "do you think they would've wanted it and would have wanted to ostracize everyone who didn't take it?" "They" believed the narrative and didn't avail themselves of a thing called independent research, though "they" had access to the same information I had access to. And ostracizing was a choice I, for one, will never forgive them for.
Yes. Well isn’t that a big part of the problem? We live in an age of information yet none of us has access to information which hasn’t gone through the spin cycle. I’m not sure of what the proles want. I have lately been asking folks what they want government to do. Many are uncertain. Some are uncertain because they desire to be that way and have Daddy Government take care of them. Many are confused, though, because they are uncertain of what is real and they don’t have the time or energy to slog through what is presented as information to find the real. In the U.S. we need an honest news media. I’m not sure how to go about it but ending cable tv with its captured customers paying lots for so little might help.
As for politics, I continue to think that real term limits would be a step forward.
One of the crazier things that the US allows is pharmaceutical company advertising.... That would be a good place to start. I really wonder if the entire advertising model (in general) is one of our biggest problem.
I find truth in what you shared but something is missing for me. We do seem to get the government we deserve. That seems self-evident. If "we" actually wanted something different, we would do what it took to get it.
The point about the accuracy of information shared below also rings true. When we are fed garbage or so much inconsistency it's hard to know what truly is. When the new study comes out that contradicts the previous study often it's only the headline is retained. When there is purposeful obfuscation of facts then there can be no clear arguments and agreement on a way forward. How much energy went to creating reliable systems to collect relevant facts and present them in a clear and meaningful way across geographies and political boundaries? Did it feel like it was really "life and death" of the species that was at stake? It didn't to me. Lack of clarity and consistency keeps many focused on the data and not potential solutions. Accidental? Coincidental? Incompetence? Just too hard? Or by design and conspiratorial? So many fights over the wrong things, the eye off the ball, so to speak.
Cui bono - to whose benefit - plays louder and louder for me. There is incentive for most parties to ignore the past, to forget their role or what they advocated for.
The simple fact is that we do vote with our money, with our focus and attention. We support these elitists or the status quo (which has been built by those who benefit from it most.)
This palpable feeling of "winning" the populist movement is enjoying right now is not what it appears to be. In reality, this is just another extension of what happened in the 2022 midterms where it felt like we had tons of momentum but ended up getting trounced in the elections.
All that is happening is the further polarization of society. The left and right are further isolating themselves into their own little bubbles. We can't see the momentum occurring in parallel on the other side because we don't talk to them anymore and we dont watch the same media as them. It's just a blind spot, we cannot see what's happening on the other side simply because we don't care to.
To demonstrate this point, recently my town had an "all ages 'pride' festival." I've never before in my life seen so much activity in my town. It seemed every single yuppie house got out their e-bikes and strollers to make the pilgramage to pride mecca. The energy was intense. I would have never expected it.
I wonder if this instead shows how the longing for connection is being met within the paradigm of what feels comfortable (which is being "accepted" within the majority)?
It doesn't take much effort to see what is being promulgated in the media, and what is the current clickbait "alternative" or conspiracy minded alternative. It might not be nuanced but it's not lacking in clarity.
The polarization keeps the eye off the prize, putting the focus on symptoms and effects as opposed to underlying causes. This also allows the discomfort that things aren't going as well as they could, or the decline is actually more than is apparent, that so many clearly feel - even those who outwardly support the status quo because they aren't deep and curious thinkers or they are afraid of losing what status or financial security they have built for themselves. Almost no one I ever speak to has no worry or discomfort about our societal construct - it's felt in the bones. I believe this fear drives a lot of herd behavior.
I'm in agreement with you. I don't think the totalitarians have been stopped at all, that they have had a few small defeats but that their drive to a world communist/facist oligarchy remains very strong.
Eugyppius, Most of this is unbelievable, really. I am hoping you can give us your thoughts on the Swiss referendum in which 60% of the population, NOW, voted to continue the covid law. What kind of insanity does this represent? Thanks.
I'm here in Switzerland and fought long and hard against these laws. This result was a gut punch, but not unexpected. The Swiss are no different from anyone else: sheep.
That is shocking. But I guess Switzerland has so many pharmaceutical companies present there, the public cannot imagine them purposefully doing harm? The only glimmer of hope I saw against all of the EU nonsense with Covid was Italy refusing to allow insects in their flour. That was the only “win” that I could see...
It drives me a bit nuts that so many people seem to think that if only more people would 'wake up', or if this or that piece of information would become known, then everything would be okay. Information is predicated on power, not the other way around. Two plus two always equals four. We will need an applicable, equal or superior force to oppose; everything else is wishful thinking.
The Pentagon Papers. The Lockdown Files in the UK. The more that is revealed about the insidious and corrupt nature of our governments, the more our electorates shrug their shoulders. People don’t want ‘the Truth’. The want the reassurance that their government is broadly fair and well meaning, I think any other narrative is simply too uncomfortable to bear, so they shrug and move on, busy with their own day.
Indeed. But Maslow's hierarchy is an iron law. If ever they perceive their safety and then self-interest to be on our side of the argument, they will discover what they always knew!!
Until there's a critical mass that realize they may need to use guns to "discover what they always knew", The Law itself will continue to be used as an instrument of illegality to blur what you speak of as Iron Law.
I think the state has achieved a lot of this through capricious law - not iron law. Same as tyranny imo.
Until people believe they are truly experiencing tyranny they will remain docile and domesticated by the very Law that was intended by the Founders to prevent a situation where people confuse love of country vs. love of government.
The system - the Machine - will continue until it cannot. That's when the 2A will come into play. Not that laws at that point will matter much. Not that they matter much now, in fact. Hey, how about FBI letting SBF off today?
Where the state holds a monopoly on violence, perhaps this is the inevitable outcome. Bring back duelling!!! Behind the capitol at 6, Senator, you and your second! That would help. Society is already plenty violent; it would be helpful to spread that around, perhaps, so it's not only poor Ukrainians schmucks that get killed but those policy makers in DC that send them to their deaths. Non-violence maybe needs rethinking. At least level the application of violence.
I've come to see tyranny as a normal, emergent property of our species and anything better as an aspiration and a high ideal. If what I saw in Covid wasn't violence, then I don't know what is; usually directed agains the weak, the old and the stupid. Nasty and mean. Some around me who've known the shooting kind of war felt the same.
''I've come to see tyranny as a normal, emergent property of our species'
It may not be the same way you mean it, but I look at things evolutionarily and anthropologically. Homo sapiens is pleased to view itself as the epitome of evolution ("sapiens" means "wise"—talk about a swelled head) . In actuality, we haven't really been around that long (~200k years) and I think our big brains and attendant psychology are not the survival mechanism we like to think.
There seem to have been times of better, or at least less bad. Times of higher civilisation. They seem to me to feature numerous strong middle ground economic players (whether merchants or landowners) and confidence, energy and drive. A positive shared narrative looking back and forward, a set of shared values. What has been before, can be again. Can we do that now? Can we find enough energy, confidence and courage? Dunno, but I don't intend to have not done whatever it is in my own power to do.
Well, good for you. Really. I admire the intent. But precious little is in our power anymore.
Certainly there were better, more hopeful times. The high-water mark of human civilization occurred within the past 100 years, but things are going downhill at a terrifying rate. Bad trends have been reversed in the past, but times have changed. This time, our decline will very likely continue, spread world-wide, and achieve terminal velocity.
The left never retreats. It will withdraw and cease operations for a time. That’s how Republicans in the US get power. The left overextends and the Rs take over. They never do anything though so the left advances again. The left is results oriented. The right is in it for memes.
It’s a ratchet. The left demands. The rest of us compromise. It is never enough though. So they demand again. And we compromise again. And so on. The effect is that we move forever leftward as our government grows as it attempts to supposedly solve more and more problems, though in reality, it just creates more ‘problems’ to justify its continued expansion. There is no end point.
Yup. Until the right learns how to wield power we will live in the cycle you speak of. Personally I focus locally. My reps know me. It’s easier to influence local situations then try to expand upward.
Yes. Local is the key. But perhaps that represents an inbuilt limit on effectiveness. If you become too successful, grow too much, then you are cut down. Tucker is now ‘local’ in a sense. Regardless of how many views he gets, because his platform has its own inherent credibility (or lack of it). Best of luck to you!
Wise comments. I have been surprised to see essentially no signs of repentance about all the atrocious mistakes of the COVID debacle. That said, I think this is a misapprehension of how major change happens.
Using stocks as an example, the “bull market” continues even as fewer stocks are driving the continued overall rise, until finally the darlings fail, and the whole market rolls over.
Similarly, there is a whole panoply of bad ideas that have driven/exemplified the COVID abuse/insanity…many of the smaller issues have begun failing even as the overall pandemic authoritarianism apparently continues its bull market unabated, but the movement is being hollowed out - when it comes to mass movements, change comes gradually, then suddenly.
Clearly, we are still in the gradually stage but this part of an inexorable process, the rate of change is shifting.
Above all else the populace wants to be safe and secure, even if they have to be slaves. The elitists are going to deny them the delusion of liberty, the gloves are off. When a recall election comes along the voters retain them. The moral compass is lost along with the ability to use the compass if they were to find it in their sock drawer.
No politician can save humanity. The winners of any election are selected, not elected. Only the most obedient to the WEF, the WHO and the UN will be allowed into office. Only unity amongst humanity can win this battle. Politicians do their best to divide people.
I think you're right. Re: Tucker Carlson, registered Republicans who sat quietly by while their kids and grandkids were deprived of basic rights (I recall an incident in the state where I lived in which a woman was arrested for driving around without a destination such as a grocery or liquor store--arrested for driving around... in America), those Republicans might have heard TC on Fox and and woken up. TC can have a kajillion "viewers" on Twitter, but they're all his fans already. There's a guy, WelcomeTheEagle88, on Substack, who keeps track of VAERS and informs his readers when the CDC delays or erases reports. He could have a million followers, and it would not change a single thing in this country. If he had five minutes on a major cable network, then the average guy could no longer pretend he didn't know that the feds manipulate VAERS in an opaque (but seemingly malign) way. But no. The PTB are still in charge, and the foot-stamping of the people doesn't rattle them in the slightest.
This. ^^^^ Illegal immigration. Our government knows the vast majority of US citizens are against it. They know it’s terrible for our economy, our safety and our sovereignty. They all know, Dems and Reps. But they are not at all interested in fixing it. They make noise occasionally, but it’s never fixed. I guess there aren’t any kickbacks, no grift to get from securing our borders.
I can only guess at the folks paying Congress to act as if there is no solution to the situation at the US southern border, but I imagine it includes Big Ag (because they need people who are both willing to work for less than minimum wage and ignorant of the dangers of pesticide exposure) and child molesters (O'Keefe did a nice expose a while ago on teens who were entering the US unescorted, then released into the custody of "aunts" or "uncles" whom they had never met). Both R and D, I'm sure, get plenty of cash from just those two groups. And then there's the whole issue of quotas... I'm sure plenty of commercial interests who like things as they are (employers who hire a lot of H1-B visa-enabled individuals, for example) would not want any discussion of redoing the quotas for foreign nationals entering the country. Having the southern border be more secure than it is, is not about hating Mexicans or anything so simplistic. That's just the canard the PTB throw out there to obscure the fact that plenty of Americans (the majority?) would support allowing a substantially larger number of Mexican citizens to enter the country *legally* while stopping child trafficking.
Also, great handle. I cried the first time I read *Holes.*
For decades, politics and Public Office has attracted a particular type of person, and I would not say said person would be the best of us
We get power seekers, and not the capitalist tycoon types, but the government sorts.
If I compare western democracies to dictatorships, the only salient difference is the former spends more effort on lawfare and media, but the end result is dictatorship by hundreds as opposed to of one. I'd rather the latter, at least I know where I stand, and there is a possibility of someone with a semblance of honor
I'm hardly advocating for someone like Kim or a monarch or whatever. But its without a doubt that the current system isn't working and has become fortified against getting fixed
"I emphatically don’t believe that it’s hopeless..."
There is always hope, but mine grows less emphatic every day. I would welcome a hopeful essay from you sometime. I generally find your analyses to be quite correct, but disheartening.
Agreed Eugyppius. The forces of tyranny are unrelenting, and currently have no small degree of momentum. Inroads may have been made in slowing their roll, but I still have not quite reached a state of even cautious optimism. Our current state of affairs should be proof that the past 40 years have been a largely one sided push to the edge of a cliff for western society. Can we save it at this point? I'm not so sure.
I agree with Eugyppius. The confidence of the elites in the robustness of their position means they can easily tolerate the Tucker Carlsons of this world. It allows them to claim there is a plurality of voices and that free speech is alive and well. While obviously ignoring the huge power disparity and ‘credibility’ gap of those voices. ie ‘ Tucker Carlson is a right wing conspiracy nut so his voice doesn’t count and anyone who listens to him is also suspect, and a fool. ‘
There's a lot more of us suspects and fools than the oligarchs should be comfortable with.
And that's the entire reason why this game of capture has been so rapt with manic insanity. If it were your money and property at stake, and your only religion is greed, what would you do?
It is not their property. They have theirs that they own and we have ours.
They have theirs and they have much of ours.
Greatest quote of the day. Thank you for this!
Yeah I bet Louis XVI was very comfortable being divine and all.
If the elites could "easily tolerate" the Tuckers of the world there would have been no need to silence him.
I take your point. But I think they are tolerating him. They haven’t silenced Tucker. They have just removed him from a platform that has ‘legitimacy’ to one that doesn’t. (From their point of view) Essentially he has gone from a version of the church pulpit to shouting in a corner of the village square. It doesn’t matter if people are still listening to him. He is now an ‘outsider’ so they can dismiss him as irrelevant. Here in the uk they don’t need to deny a lockdown sceptic a voice, they just need to keep them off the BBC. They can say what they like. As long as it’s not on a ‘proper’ platform it doesn’t matter.
But they are not ignoring him at all, they are still trying to shut him up. Prior to Tucker's "firing" Fox was the highest rated news network. Since he was cancelled MSNBC out rated Fox for the first time in 10 years. It's not just Tuckers time slot that has lost ratings the entire network has suffered.
I don't know how things work in the UK but here the states you absolutely don't need "legitimacy" to be taken seriously, just ask Joe Rogan.
Yes. I think we are just talking at cross purposes. There was an article which referred to Joe Rogan in an English newspaper this week. Despite him being the biggest podcaster in the world the photo they chose and how they depicted him, made him out to be a buffoon. They are ‘shutting up’ these people by saying if you are not on our platforms you don’t count. And the rest of the media etc seems to go along with that. Maybe it matters that Tucker gets more views than Fox. But to them it doesn’t. That’s all I’m saying. My point is to ask- do viewers matter if you own and control the landscape?. I’m not sure. You might have the viewers but they definitely control the narrative. Best to you Sharon.
Doesn't that make the English newspaper a rag? It's pathetic really Rogan's influence so vastly exceeds, whatever publication this was (it doesn't even matter what paper it was Rogan's audience and influence exceeds theirs). Where does this notion of legitimacy even come from?
It sounds like you've given up. I don't know how things are in the UK but there's not a lot that here in the US. Though I'll admit it feels like an up hill battle.
The elites can dismiss him all they like, but the "legitimacy" of their platforms are ultimately dependent on the audience. FOX took an enormous ratings hit when they fired Tucker, and its viewers didn't go to CNN or MSNBC. They followed Tucker to the village square.
That’s true Danno. But my point is that the MSM is the only ‘real’ platform according to the people in charge. Which gives them the power to dismiss everyone else. I’m not saying Tuckers millions of viewers don’t count. They are.. Fox surely knew they would take a massive hit to viewers when they let Tucker go. But it didn’t stop them. They’re not idiots. So why did they do it? Well they were obviously getting something out of it. I’d suggest they want to become a more ‘mainstream’ channel. Because that gives them power and legitimacy. It brings them ‘inside the tent’. But it’s a subtle point and I’m not saying I’m 100% right, it’s just a point of view.
Noam Chomsky, the Marxist professor of linguistics who wanted all of the unvaccinated to die once had this to say about how consent is manufactured by the real powers behind the illusion of governance. When he believed his Marxist ideals were on the outside looking in. Now that his ideals are on the inside…the outsiders need to die. Nonetheless, we can and must always learn from our adversaries when they have something to teach us. I believe these excerpts help us to understand that which eugyppius is discussing:
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, 1989 (Speech)
https://chomsky.info/19890315/
(Must split into three comments, continuation in comments below)
(1/3)
"All of these operations were completely illegal. There was a Congressional report done on them- General- GAO report, which simply pointed out that of course they’re illegal — they were run out of the National Security Council, and, not allowed to propagandize Americans. But it was very successful. When this was exposed during the Iran-Contra hearings, one top administration official described the activities of the Office of Public Diplomacy as one of their really great achievements. It was a, he said, a spectacular success. He described it as the kind of operation that you carry out in enemy territory. And that’s quite an appropriate phrase. I think the phrase expresses exactly the way in which the public is viewed by people with power: it’s an enemy, it’s a domestic enemy, and you got to keep it under control, and you have to make sure that the mysteries are not revealed, so that the people don’t become so curious and arrogant that they refuse to submit to a civil rule, to put it in 17th Century terms. And to control that domestic enemy, propaganda and fabrications, and so on, are important, and that’s what the public relations industry is for, for corporate purposes, and what the media are for if they properly serve the State."
...
"If you go back to the International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences published in 1933 — days when people were a little more open and honest in what they said — there’s an article on propaganda, and it’s well worth reading. There’s an entry under propaganda. The entry is written by a leading- one- maybe the leading American political scientist, Harold Lasswell, who was very influential, particularly in this area, communications, and so on. And in this entry in the International Encyclopedia on propaganda he says, we should not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about men being the best judges of their own interests. They’re not, he said. Even with the rise of mass education- doesn’t mean that people can judge their own interests. They can’t. The best judges of their interests are elites — the specialized class, the cool observers, the people who have rationality — and therefore they must be granted the means to impose their will. Notice, for the common good. Because, again, because- well, he says, because of the ignorance and superstition of the masses, he said it’s necessary to have a whole new technique of control, largely through propaganda. Propaganda, he says, we shouldn’t have a negative connotation about, it’s neutral. Propaganda, he says, is as neutral as a pump handle. You can use it for good, you can use it for bad; since were good people, obviously, — that’s sort of true by definition — we’ll use it for good purposes, and there should be no negative connotations about that. In fact, it’s moral to use it, because that’s the only way that you can save the ignorant and stupid masses of the population from their own errors. You don’t let a three year old run across the street, and you don’t let ordinary people make their own decisions. You have to control them.
And why do you need propaganda? Well, he explains that. He says, in military-run or feudal societies — what we would these days call totalitarian societies — you don’t really need propaganda that much. And the reason is you’ve got a- you’ve got a club in your hand. You can control the way people behave, and therefore it doesn’t matter much what they think, because if they get out of line you can control them — for their own good, of course. But once you lose the club, you know, once the State loses its capacity to coerce by force, then you have some problems. The voice of the people is heard — you’ve got all these formal mechanisms around that permit people to express themselves, and even participate, and vote, and that sort of thing — and you can’t control them by force, because you’ve lost that capacity. But the voice of the people is heard, and therefore you’ve got to make sure it says the right thing. And in order to make sure it says the right thing, you’ve got to have effective and sophisticated propaganda, again, for their own good.
So in a- as a society becomes more free — that is, there’s less capacity to coerce — it simply needs more sophisticated indoctrination and propaganda. For the public good.
The similarity between this and Leninist ideology is very striking. According to Leninist ideology, the cool observers, the radical intelligentsia, will be the vanguard who will lead the stupid and ignorant masses on to, you know, communist utopia, because they’re too stupid to work it out by themselves.
And in fact there’s been a very easy transition over these years between one and the other position. You know, it’s very striking that continually people move from one position to the other, very easily. And I think the reason for the ease is partly because they’re sort of the same position. So you can be either a Marxist-Leninist commissar, or you can be somebody celebrating the magnificence of State capitalism, and you can serve those guys. It’s more or less the same position. You pick one or the other depending on your estimate of where power is, and that can change.
The- and in fact the mainstream of the intelligentsia, I think over the last, say, through this century, have tended to be in one or the other camp. Either- there’s this strong appeal of Marxism-Leninism to the intelligentsia, for obvious reasons — I don’t have to bother saying. And there’s the same appeal of these doctrines to the intelligentsia, because it puts them in the position of justifying- of having a justified role as ideological managers, in the service of real power, corporate/State power. For the public good, of course. So you naturally are tempted to one or the other position."
...
(2/3)
"The- a presidential- well-known historian, presidential historian, Thomas Baily, explained in 1948, that because the masses are notoriously short-sighted, and generally cannot see danger until it is at their throats, our statesmen are forced to deceive them into an awareness of their own long-run interests. Deception of the people may, in fact, become increasingly necessary, unless we are willing to give our leaders in Washington a freer hand.
In other words, if we continue this nonsense of trying to control them through elections, and that sort of thing, it’s going to be necessary to have deception of the people, because the masses are too stupid and ignorant to understand the danger that’s at their throat. And that’s the role of the media, to carry out the appropriate deception."
"The- but now this crisis of democracy had erupted. What had happened was, during the 1960s all sorts of segments of the population that are normally apathetic and passive and obedient and don’t get in the way, began to become organized and vocal and raise questions and press their demands in the political arena, and that caused an overload. That caused a crisis of democracy. You couldn’t just govern the country with a few Wall Street lawyers and bankers any longer, you had all these other pressures coming from the general population, and that’s a problem. And we’ve got to overcome the problem. And the way to overcome the problem, they said, all three- the whole group, is to introduce more moderation in democracy to mitigate the excess of democracy. That means, in short, to return the general population to their apathy and passivity, and the obedience which becomes them. That’s the stupid and ignorant masses have to be kept out of trouble, and when you get these crises of democracy, you’ve got to restore the norm, what we had before.
Well, that’s a view that goes right back to the origins of the republic. If you read the sayings of the founding fathers, you will discover that that was essentially their view as well. They also regarded the public as a dangerous threat. The way the country ought to be organized, as John Jay put it, the president of the constitutional convention and the first supreme court- chief justice of the supreme court, his- one of his favorite maxims, according to his biographer, was that those who run- those who own the country ought to govern it. And if they can’t govern it by force, they’ve got to govern it in another way, and that ultimately requires deception, propaganda, indoctrination, the manufacture of consent."
...
"The- but now this crisis of democracy had erupted. What had happened was, during the 1960s all sorts of segments of the population that are normally apathetic and passive and obedient and don’t get in the way, began to become organized and vocal and raise questions and press their demands in the political arena, and that caused an overload. That caused a crisis of democracy. You couldn’t just govern the country with a few Wall Street lawyers and bankers any longer, you had all these other pressures coming from the general population, and that’s a problem. And we’ve got to overcome the problem. And the way to overcome the problem, they said, all three- the whole group, is to introduce more moderation in democracy to mitigate the excess of democracy. That means, in short, to return the general population to their apathy and passivity, and the obedience which becomes them. That’s the stupid and ignorant masses have to be kept out of trouble, and when you get these crises of democracy, you’ve got to restore the norm, what we had before.
Well, that’s a view that goes right back to the origins of the republic. If you read the sayings of the founding fathers, you will discover that that was essentially their view as well. They also regarded the public as a dangerous threat. The way the country ought to be organized, as John Jay put it, the president of the constitutional convention and the first supreme court- chief justice of the supreme court, his- one of his favorite maxims, according to his biographer, was that those who run- those who own the country ought to govern it. And if they can’t govern it by force, they’ve got to govern it in another way, and that ultimately requires deception, propaganda, indoctrination, the manufacture of consent."
...
"The- but now this crisis of democracy had erupted. What had happened was, during the 1960s all sorts of segments of the population that are normally apathetic and passive and obedient and don’t get in the way, began to become organized and vocal and raise questions and press their demands in the political arena, and that caused an overload. That caused a crisis of democracy. You couldn’t just govern the country with a few Wall Street lawyers and bankers any longer, you had all these other pressures coming from the general population, and that’s a problem. And we’ve got to overcome the problem. And the way to overcome the problem, they said, all three- the whole group, is to introduce more moderation in democracy to mitigate the excess of democracy. That means, in short, to return the general population to their apathy and passivity, and the obedience which becomes them. That’s the stupid and ignorant masses have to be kept out of trouble, and when you get these crises of democracy, you’ve got to restore the norm, what we had before.
Well, that’s a view that goes right back to the origins of the republic. If you read the sayings of the founding fathers, you will discover that that was essentially their view as well. They also regarded the public as a dangerous threat. The way the country ought to be organized, as John Jay put it, the president of the constitutional convention and the first supreme court- chief justice of the supreme court, his- one of his favorite maxims, according to his biographer, was that those who run- those who own the country ought to govern it. And if they can’t govern it by force, they’ve got to govern it in another way, and that ultimately requires deception, propaganda, indoctrination, the manufacture of consent."
...
(3/3)
"Now, the way the media work, there are some media which kind of set the agenda, you know, the most important ones, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, big national media, they set the agenda. If the government wants a story to get into television that evening, what it does is leak it to get into the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times, on the assumption that television will pick it up and say, ok that’s important, so we’ll give it the front news. The same is true of national television. It sets- it sets the agenda that makes people think. The New York Times front page is sent over the wire services the afternoon of the day before — there is a thing, if you read the- you know, you look at that stuff that’s ground out of the AP wire, you’ll notice around four o’clock comes something that says, The New York Times front page tomorrow is going to look like so-and-so. Well, if you’re an editor of a journal in some small town, you read it and you say, oh, that’s what the important news is, and you frame your own reporting that way. Now, you know, it’s not, sort of, a hundred percent, but there is a kind of an agenda setting media — New York Times, Washington Post, the three television channels, a few others that participate to some extent in this.
Well, ask yourself what those institutions are. Answer: those institutions are first of all major corporations, some of the biggest corporations in the country. Furthermore, they’re integrated with, and in many cases owned by, even larger corporations, you know, like General Electric, and so on. So what you have is major corporations and conglomerates. Now, like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market in this case is advertisers; that’s what keeps them alive. The product is audiences. They sell audiences to advertisers. In fact for the major media, they try to sell privileged audiences to advertisers. That raises advertising rates, and those are the people they’re trying to reach anyway."
...
"Now, the way the media work, there are some media which kind of set the agenda, you know, the most important ones, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, big national media, they set the agenda. If the government wants a story to get into television that evening, what it does is leak it to get into the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times, on the assumption that television will pick it up and say, ok that’s important, so we’ll give it the front news. The same is true of national television. It sets- it sets the agenda that makes people think. The New York Times front page is sent over the wire services the afternoon of the day before — there is a thing, if you read the- you know, you look at that stuff that’s ground out of the AP wire, you’ll notice around four o’clock comes something that says, The New York Times front page tomorrow is going to look like so-and-so. Well, if you’re an editor of a journal in some small town, you read it and you say, oh, that’s what the important news is, and you frame your own reporting that way. Now, you know, it’s not, sort of, a hundred percent, but there is a kind of an agenda setting media — New York Times, Washington Post, the three television channels, a few others that participate to some extent in this.
Well, ask yourself what those institutions are. Answer: those institutions are first of all major corporations, some of the biggest corporations in the country. Furthermore, they’re integrated with, and in many cases owned by, even larger corporations, you know, like General Electric, and so on. So what you have is major corporations and conglomerates. Now, like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market in this case is advertisers; that’s what keeps them alive. The product is audiences. They sell audiences to advertisers. In fact for the major media, they try to sell privileged audiences to advertisers. That raises advertising rates, and those are the people they’re trying to reach anyway."
...
"Now, the way the media work, there are some media which kind of set the agenda, you know, the most important ones, like The New York Times and The Washington Post, big national media, they set the agenda. If the government wants a story to get into television that evening, what it does is leak it to get into the front page of The Washington Post and The New York Times, on the assumption that television will pick it up and say, ok that’s important, so we’ll give it the front news. The same is true of national television. It sets- it sets the agenda that makes people think. The New York Times front page is sent over the wire services the afternoon of the day before — there is a thing, if you read the- you know, you look at that stuff that’s ground out of the AP wire, you’ll notice around four o’clock comes something that says, The New York Times front page tomorrow is going to look like so-and-so. Well, if you’re an editor of a journal in some small town, you read it and you say, oh, that’s what the important news is, and you frame your own reporting that way. Now, you know, it’s not, sort of, a hundred percent, but there is a kind of an agenda setting media — New York Times, Washington Post, the three television channels, a few others that participate to some extent in this.
Well, ask yourself what those institutions are. Answer: those institutions are first of all major corporations, some of the biggest corporations in the country. Furthermore, they’re integrated with, and in many cases owned by, even larger corporations, you know, like General Electric, and so on. So what you have is major corporations and conglomerates. Now, like other corporations, they sell a product to a market. The market in this case is advertisers; that’s what keeps them alive. The product is audiences. They sell audiences to advertisers. In fact for the major media, they try to sell privileged audiences to advertisers. That raises advertising rates, and those are the people they’re trying to reach anyway."
...
"NOAM CHOMSKY: because the United States is a much freer- in fact the- what I’ve said about the United States, and I’ll say it again, it’s in many ways the freest society in the world. Sure there’s repression here, but it’s also a, by comparative standards, a very free society. In fact I think that’s one of the reasons it has such sophisticated thought control, as I tried to explain.
The capacity of the- the capacity of the State to coerce in the United States is relatively limited. You’re quite right that there’s plenty of oppression. I mentioned the FBI, which is the national political police, which is dedicated to oppression. That’s its job. It’s been doing it ever since it was founded. Well, you know, that’s inconsistent with the free society. But, again, by comparative standards, remember I’m talking about comparative standards, the United States is quite a free society. The capacity of the State to coerce, I think, is limited, probably- more so than any other society I know at least. So I don’t think that it would be correct to call it a dungeon."
...
"If you could get to the point where voting is simply the matter- a matter of selecting purely symbolic figures, then you would have gone a long way towards marginalizing the public. And that pretty well happened in the last eight years. You know, you had somebody who probably didn’t know what the policies were. His job was to read the lines rich- written for him by the rich folk — what he’s been doing for the last thirty or forty years. And he seems to enjoy it and he gets well paid for it, and everybody seems happy, but to vote for Ronald Reagan is like voting for the Queen of England. And that’s an advance.
I don’t really mean this as a joke, I think that’s an advance, you know, it’s progress in marginalizing the public. Part of marginalizing the public is, taking the formal mechanisms of participation which exist, and ensuring that they don’t lead to a crisis of democracy by being substantive. And what better method can you think of that simply reducing them to the selection of symbolic figures. I think that happened, and I think the press hasn’t covered it, though they doubtless know it."
...
"When does the government resort to covert activities? Well, typically, when the domestic enemy doesn’t allow it to carry out the activities in public. That’s when a government resorts to clandestine activities. Clandestine activities are difficult, complex, expensive, they carry the danger of being exposed. It’s much easier and more efficient to carry out violent activities overtly. And a government typically, our government in particular, when it resorts to clandestine activities, it’s usually because it’s afraid of the public."
...
"In fact if you look at what Lenin wrote after that period, or did, you’ll find it’s a reversion to the earlier position. This sort of left deviation, is that, a deviation. You could ask why. In my view it was just opportunistic. He knew that in order to gain power he was going to have to go along with the popular currents that were developing, which were, in fact, spontaneous and libertarian and socialist, as most popular movements are, have been, in fact, since the 17th century. And being an astute politician, which he was, he sort of went along with that, and talked the line that the people wanted to hear. It’s just like when an American politician goes somewhere, and his pollsters tell him, say so and so, he says it. It doesn’t mean he believes it. And I think Lenin was doing the same thing without polls."
Nor have I. And in the US, I will not be optimistic until enough Americans are at the point where they remember what 2A is really for.
It wasn't intended merely to go to the target range.
Not to say it needs to be exercised in the classical sense, rather the mindset.
Until then it's all a joke imo.
Can someone answer your next to last sentence?
Who could answer it? Only time will tell. Experience tells me that returning to even a pre-pandemic world won't happen. The collective horror that was imposed upon all of us has changed our social norms and ideals, and short of something truly revolutionary occurring, we don't go back. Stalling the "transformation" (Obama's promise) is likely the best we can do.
I see your points. We don't go back. We can never let Muslim Obama's transformation of
America happen. He needs to be transported out of our Country. What a disgrace having a
Marxist given Secret Service protection.
AMEN!!!
+
It will be moving forward in a different way that will set things on a better axis. We need to let go of what was, even though there was a lot of good there, because they were already well into prepping their game. We need to go forward in a new and much stronger way, each of us personally. Maybe it will involve moving through our long-standing obstacles, the things that always held us back. We have nothing to lose in doing these personal transformations and a lot to lose if we don't.
Much of the world system and globalism has been put forward to support the Americans desire to establish a direct defense against Soviet Russia and communism, as that threat has receded largely since 1990 the reason for the system has cease to exist. In the vacuum many people try to come in and create other belief systems to justify the status quo, people are realizing now there is no justification as the world has changed. We will see what comes next!
We the People, Patriots, Conservatives must plan too!
I hope no one can answer it.
"[T]heoretical limits" are like the ‘science’ fantasy poison injected into our neighbors’ veins - or moving on to defending 'freedom' on the south Donetsk front, or toxic orange Martian atmosphere in Manhattan - whether Eugyppius meant that specifically, we know such utter scoundrels will always push their limits ... from one lethal three card monty game to the next.
Any lawyers involved in the election fiascos of 2000 & 2004 (on either side) get the joke of the 'literal' view of democracy in American politics. I’ll certainly never forget it.
This is probably germane to Eugyppious' themes of recent weeks ...
Regarding the Great Kennedy vs. Hotez Debate that won't happen ... If you are scared Dr. Hotez (and you are), say you're scared.
https://billricejr.substack.com/p/the-great-debate-that-wont-happen
The reason I'm a little (well, entirely) scornful of works of philosophy and political thought is because human nature cannot be altered, and cooperative systems that might work in small related groups always start failing once you get to bigger groups that must create artificial, constructed relationships to hold themselves together. No one can engineer a utopia, and benevolent monarchal systems (as you discussed in a previous post) require not having a moron as one's hereditary leader. Odds always run against you.
And even tiny related (by blood or common interests and cultural values) often become tiny despotic regimes too. People do love their titles and the privileges that come with them and they fight with remarkable ferocity to hold them, no matter how ridiculously trivial they are in the scheme of village life.
And none of us want to give up whatever purported entitlements the regimes dole out to us, and them regimes make it so expensive to try that it's really a fool's game anyway to opt out. Shortly after qualifying for Medicare I had a silly household accident resulting in a sprained ankle, fractured foot and gashed forehead, and even though I merely spent a night in an emergency bay rather than having been formally admitted, the bill for sewing up my forehead and giving me a dinosaur boot to hobble home with came to more than $30,000, and I was pretty relieved, between Medicare and the supplemental insurance policy I had, to have therefore owed $0 out of pocket. But obviously it's a complete scam system between the "healthcare" providers and the government. And even if, say, I'd not had insurance and negotiated a lower cash payment bill, I don't have that cash. They got our necks in that noose and keep wringing 'em.
We need to stop believing in political heroes, hone our skepticism till it's razor sharp and never let it get rusty, and do the best we can. Someone always always wants power and they will always be corrupted by it.
The attempt to craft a system of governance that pits those with political power against one another as a way to limit the natural inclination towards welding power excessively was a brilliant one. That commerce had managed to overshadow such a system in less than a hundred years was acknowledged by Abraham Lincoln when he claimed to fear the bankers even more than the Southern rebel army. The oligarchic class needs to be defanged of its corrosive power before we will be able to realize the potential for freedom, liberty, and justice that the American national architects envisioned.
Unfortunately, the oligarchs have wisely learned to use the State, all of its institutions, as a massive, protective wall behind which to hide.
It's relatively easy to deal with a few hundred oligarchs. The question is, how does one reach them?
Excellent comment. That's pretty much my political philosophy in a nutshell. Eventually, every system created by humans will end up being gamed and corrupted. We have Neolithic hunter-gatherer brains trying to survive in a 21st century world. We're designed to live in groups of <100.
There's really no way to win. It's pure luck for good or ill, the era one's born in.
Maybe the worst thing all the smart intellectuals did, starting with those awful French writers, was to demonize the middle class and its tastes and aspirations. Considering all the alternatives, to have a middle-class lifestyle is pretty damn good. It's as ideal as life can get. The people who made normal middle-class kids feel ashamed of who they were and the pretty much universal values of that class did a great evil. Here's hoping Flaubert ended up in a pretty bad place for the term necessary to have had him recognize and repent for his crimes, in the cosmic scheme of things. Metaphorically speaking of course.
Quick comment from Australia, here one of the main political parties is founded on the ideas and aspirations of the middle class, of course they got corrupted and abandoned that and now are the Marxist-lite "opposition" to the full far left Marxist Labor regime in power here. So we have the fiction of a multi-party system.
But I'm surprised Eugyppius doesn't mention the role of culture. I've just returned from Vietnam, which Wikipedia assures me is "totalitarian socialist" country. I've never seen so much capitalism and social order in my life. They threw out the globalists in 1975. And the culture is based on ancestor worship, before doing anything people ask themselves "what would Grandpa think of me if I did that?" Seems to me we can still obtain a measure of redemption by a return to traditional values
That "traditional values" thingy is a real minefield. I'm quite sure many of my own choices grieved the ancestors considerably but in the cosmic scheme of things they may feel, as I do, that all my idiocies were in service of an ultimately miraculous outcome.
We all individually do have the right, I think, to act as we feel is right though loved ones and society may disagree.
Yes but how do you make a "society" out of that? Individuals all acting out what they think is right is the jungle. Seems to me that the ancient rules "thou shall not...etc" served us pretty well for many centuries. Today we are told that everybody creates their own reality through how they "feel" about something. 2 + 2 can equal 5, if you "feel" it does. Men can have babies. In other words, chaos
Served us quite imperfectly.
All society-making requires crushing of the heretic, however one defines the word. My country was founded by people who refused to be crushed by their home societies and fled here (where of course many of them did their damnedest to try and crush dissenters in their midst....).
We've just barely survived a Plague Era defined by all the "thou shall nots" self-appointed Higher Authorities tried to jam down our throats. It wasn't pretty, was it?
And as I understand, Vietnam was pretty authoritarian in that regard. Sort of like Australia, and considerable parts of the US. None of us reading this Substack liked that at all.
The one thing that cannot be altered is human nature.
This is one of those part truths that becomes a tragic lie when misused.
While from the zoomed out, big picture view it is certainly realistic and correct to say that “you can’t change human nature”, it is also importantly true that from the small level of the individual, one absolutely can fight the good fight to elevate and ennoble one’s nature over time and through experience.
Maybe as things collapse under the karmic weight of ten billion ignoble choices and the rotten forms which develop from out of these choices, there will be space for many to weave the profound insights such painful experiences bring into the fabric of their souls, so that these ennoblements become a part of the warp and weft of the next era, whenever that comes.
Yes, this is true. But, regarding government vs. people, nothing has ever changed. Man's human nature is self, which has been consistent throughout history. No government has ever been self-sacrificing or for the people. Once in power over others the first consideration on any matter is how to stay in power.
Actually, there is one. The Dalai Lama system routinely produced a benevolent ruler in Tibet. Though it would be difficult to replicate.
Pardon me, but--fer fuck's sake. Stealing toddlers from their parents because the cult decides one of them is the reincarnation of the previous lama.
All cults are the same. Maggots under the flowers, if you look carefully enough.
The evaluation requires the consent of the family. Once chosen the family moves to the capital and they are given land and titles. "Stealing toddlers" does not in any way reflect how any party involved feels about the process.
Or in English vernacular: extortion and bribery. Good luck to the mother who tries to resist the monks' mafia.
But not in the Tibetan vernacular. In Tibet the whole family considered it to be both an honor and a privilege, but if you disagree and want to be outraged on their behalf that's your prerogative.
I'm not outraged. Just, you know, honest.
The presence of all these powerful and dangerous wolves blinds almost everybody for the real underlying issue: the abundance of sheep. Nobody is pointing at the 80% or more among us that have turned into absolute sheep. But it is these sheep that are the one and only source of the power of the wolves everybody is tunnel visioning on. Without this insane super majority of hapless trusting sleep-walking sheep none of all these lunatic and catastrophic developments would be possible. In my wider family Im the only one who is skeptical towards the media and the government, let alone global organizations like the WHO. Every single family member except me thinks the lockdown and the mass vaccination helped, and that climate change needs us all to sacrifice our first born. Because their TV tells them so. Thats it. The media have become their new uber church, a church more powerful than any church in history.
Agree. The on-all-day TV is ubiquitous -- just walk after dark and the glowing, annoying, flickering images can be seen in almost every family room and now living room. Huge, mesmerizing, hypnotic screens with "all the news that's fit to spew."
It's discouraging to try to talk to formerly sensible people, religious and conservative, who are unaware of what is really going on, and will resent it if you hint that there is more to the story.
It's definitely discouraging, so I'm trying any and every tactic to break through the "wall" people have allowed to accumulate one grain of sand at a time these last few years as they've let rivers of water flow over them as they sat in place...
Yet there is hope in that the internet keeps displacing the TV more and more as a source of information.
Yeah but it's controlled information innit...
We can almost say anything on the internet though. I know that no one is censoring me right now. Pretty sure, anyway.
An article in the Epoch Times today, says the government has blackmail databases on trouble causers! Watch out!
Those who never overthink never fully think anything through.
This is brilliant fyi.
It has cost me countless sleepless nights. But has proven to be the "edge" in life.
I used to suffer from frequent insomnia.
I started filling a 3x5 card with everything I was thinking about that would fit.
Then I'd be able to lay down and pass out, leaving the brainstorming to the next day.
Check out James Pennebaker and the Expressive Writing Paradigm. His research, which was replicated so often that it became a paradigm, also shows you get immune benefits from doing this. It also helps to write something down and slip it into the crack of a wall, or get paper that biodegrades and throw it in the river. All of the simple solutions are always given no attention, like music for organizing one's comprehension.
On the other hand, I have never found a form of music that allows me to concentrate intently on anything else.
That's why I subscribe.
This is perhaps the single most important sentence from all of your poastings: "Everything shows that the literal view of politics cannot be right."
And yet people believe this stuff all the time. I can only marvel at their power to shape the narrative. For instance Lockdowns were clearly and empirically a stupid idea which have caused untold and obvious damage to our societies. And yet people still accept that they were imposed in good faith, and that overall they were a successful policy. It’s nuts!
The unspoken assumption here is that we should want government representative of the popular will.
This is the democratic fallacy, the idea that when you take a bunch of dumb proles and try to average out what they believe, this will result in something sensible through some sort of mysterious alchemical transmutation that's never expounded upon.
The general pattern I notice with "populist" movements is that they just settle on policies that favor the short-term interests of middle-aged indigenous working class people, or at least what those people (often mistakenly) imagine to be in their own short-term interest.
These same populist movements were very eager in the Netherlands to have a total lockdown back in march 2020 and attacked the prime minister, for not literally prohibiting people from leaving their homes.
The problem is not that our failing political system doesn't represent the will of the people. No, the problem is that it does represent their will. When you look online it's easy to get the impression that it doesn't, because angry people are more eager to spew their verbal diarrhea online.
But at the end of the day, you're basically getting what the general population wants.
Note, this is also true for the vaccination campaign and subsequent pariah status for the unvaccinated. That's what the average person wanted. You had a bunch of weird nerds online who insisted it wasn't going to work, but they were a fringe minority. The average prole wanted a vaccine, so they got a vaccine. The average prole wanted to be protected from the unvaccinated, so they were. It now looks like it was all some sort of elitist project forced down on people, because the consensus has quietly changed and nobody is going to publicly say now that they asked for this.
well, I don't mean to reinforce this assumption at all, though I think a system which directly reflected popular demands would be superior to what we have now. but, such a system would be almost immediately subverted in the ways that ours has been, and even if it could be sustained, would give rise to many other pathologies.
you know what the average prole believes? I doubt even dumb people like to be lied to and pushed around by people who pretend to have their best interests at heart
I bounce back and forth between agreeing with you and thinking a systemic issue is corrupting the will of the people. Let's say the people were given accurate information about the vaccines, do you really think they would've wanted it and would have wanted to ostracize everyone who didn't take it?
I don't thinks it's as simple as you've made it out to be.
I'm no brainchild, but smelling a whole nest of rats, I knew the information given was contrary to things I've known most of my life. Common sense told me everything was happening too fast. I figured I'd wait and see for a while and do my own research. No "safety" data was forthcoming, and there was no evidence of "effectiveness", as many people I knew who got the jabs were falling ill. The holier-than-thou mainstream media talking heads sickeningly parroted one another. It was so idiotically scripted. "do you think they would've wanted it and would have wanted to ostracize everyone who didn't take it?" "They" believed the narrative and didn't avail themselves of a thing called independent research, though "they" had access to the same information I had access to. And ostracizing was a choice I, for one, will never forgive them for.
I think the key is that you were NOT a boomer without principles who has spent their entire life believing what theyve been told to believe.
There's a reason religious communities were immune to the propaganda.
Yes. Well isn’t that a big part of the problem? We live in an age of information yet none of us has access to information which hasn’t gone through the spin cycle. I’m not sure of what the proles want. I have lately been asking folks what they want government to do. Many are uncertain. Some are uncertain because they desire to be that way and have Daddy Government take care of them. Many are confused, though, because they are uncertain of what is real and they don’t have the time or energy to slog through what is presented as information to find the real. In the U.S. we need an honest news media. I’m not sure how to go about it but ending cable tv with its captured customers paying lots for so little might help.
As for politics, I continue to think that real term limits would be a step forward.
Thank you.
One of the crazier things that the US allows is pharmaceutical company advertising.... That would be a good place to start. I really wonder if the entire advertising model (in general) is one of our biggest problem.
You’re correct.
100%!
I agree. The old joke about two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner sums up the inherent problem with true democracy.
I find truth in what you shared but something is missing for me. We do seem to get the government we deserve. That seems self-evident. If "we" actually wanted something different, we would do what it took to get it.
The point about the accuracy of information shared below also rings true. When we are fed garbage or so much inconsistency it's hard to know what truly is. When the new study comes out that contradicts the previous study often it's only the headline is retained. When there is purposeful obfuscation of facts then there can be no clear arguments and agreement on a way forward. How much energy went to creating reliable systems to collect relevant facts and present them in a clear and meaningful way across geographies and political boundaries? Did it feel like it was really "life and death" of the species that was at stake? It didn't to me. Lack of clarity and consistency keeps many focused on the data and not potential solutions. Accidental? Coincidental? Incompetence? Just too hard? Or by design and conspiratorial? So many fights over the wrong things, the eye off the ball, so to speak.
Cui bono - to whose benefit - plays louder and louder for me. There is incentive for most parties to ignore the past, to forget their role or what they advocated for.
The simple fact is that we do vote with our money, with our focus and attention. We support these elitists or the status quo (which has been built by those who benefit from it most.)
This palpable feeling of "winning" the populist movement is enjoying right now is not what it appears to be. In reality, this is just another extension of what happened in the 2022 midterms where it felt like we had tons of momentum but ended up getting trounced in the elections.
All that is happening is the further polarization of society. The left and right are further isolating themselves into their own little bubbles. We can't see the momentum occurring in parallel on the other side because we don't talk to them anymore and we dont watch the same media as them. It's just a blind spot, we cannot see what's happening on the other side simply because we don't care to.
To demonstrate this point, recently my town had an "all ages 'pride' festival." I've never before in my life seen so much activity in my town. It seemed every single yuppie house got out their e-bikes and strollers to make the pilgramage to pride mecca. The energy was intense. I would have never expected it.
I wonder if this instead shows how the longing for connection is being met within the paradigm of what feels comfortable (which is being "accepted" within the majority)?
It doesn't take much effort to see what is being promulgated in the media, and what is the current clickbait "alternative" or conspiracy minded alternative. It might not be nuanced but it's not lacking in clarity.
The polarization keeps the eye off the prize, putting the focus on symptoms and effects as opposed to underlying causes. This also allows the discomfort that things aren't going as well as they could, or the decline is actually more than is apparent, that so many clearly feel - even those who outwardly support the status quo because they aren't deep and curious thinkers or they are afraid of losing what status or financial security they have built for themselves. Almost no one I ever speak to has no worry or discomfort about our societal construct - it's felt in the bones. I believe this fear drives a lot of herd behavior.
I'm in agreement with you. I don't think the totalitarians have been stopped at all, that they have had a few small defeats but that their drive to a world communist/facist oligarchy remains very strong.
Danny Huckabee
Eugyppius, Most of this is unbelievable, really. I am hoping you can give us your thoughts on the Swiss referendum in which 60% of the population, NOW, voted to continue the covid law. What kind of insanity does this represent? Thanks.
I'm here in Switzerland and fought long and hard against these laws. This result was a gut punch, but not unexpected. The Swiss are no different from anyone else: sheep.
Yep. Here in the USA, listening to spotify commercials tells me there really is no hope.
That is shocking. But I guess Switzerland has so many pharmaceutical companies present there, the public cannot imagine them purposefully doing harm? The only glimmer of hope I saw against all of the EU nonsense with Covid was Italy refusing to allow insects in their flour. That was the only “win” that I could see...
Any chance there was referendum interference?
It drives me a bit nuts that so many people seem to think that if only more people would 'wake up', or if this or that piece of information would become known, then everything would be okay. Information is predicated on power, not the other way around. Two plus two always equals four. We will need an applicable, equal or superior force to oppose; everything else is wishful thinking.
The Pentagon Papers. The Lockdown Files in the UK. The more that is revealed about the insidious and corrupt nature of our governments, the more our electorates shrug their shoulders. People don’t want ‘the Truth’. The want the reassurance that their government is broadly fair and well meaning, I think any other narrative is simply too uncomfortable to bear, so they shrug and move on, busy with their own day.
Indeed. But Maslow's hierarchy is an iron law. If ever they perceive their safety and then self-interest to be on our side of the argument, they will discover what they always knew!!
Until there's a critical mass that realize they may need to use guns to "discover what they always knew", The Law itself will continue to be used as an instrument of illegality to blur what you speak of as Iron Law.
I think the state has achieved a lot of this through capricious law - not iron law. Same as tyranny imo.
Until people believe they are truly experiencing tyranny they will remain docile and domesticated by the very Law that was intended by the Founders to prevent a situation where people confuse love of country vs. love of government.
The system - the Machine - will continue until it cannot. That's when the 2A will come into play. Not that laws at that point will matter much. Not that they matter much now, in fact. Hey, how about FBI letting SBF off today?
Where the state holds a monopoly on violence, perhaps this is the inevitable outcome. Bring back duelling!!! Behind the capitol at 6, Senator, you and your second! That would help. Society is already plenty violent; it would be helpful to spread that around, perhaps, so it's not only poor Ukrainians schmucks that get killed but those policy makers in DC that send them to their deaths. Non-violence maybe needs rethinking. At least level the application of violence.
I've come to see tyranny as a normal, emergent property of our species and anything better as an aspiration and a high ideal. If what I saw in Covid wasn't violence, then I don't know what is; usually directed agains the weak, the old and the stupid. Nasty and mean. Some around me who've known the shooting kind of war felt the same.
''I've come to see tyranny as a normal, emergent property of our species'
It may not be the same way you mean it, but I look at things evolutionarily and anthropologically. Homo sapiens is pleased to view itself as the epitome of evolution ("sapiens" means "wise"—talk about a swelled head) . In actuality, we haven't really been around that long (~200k years) and I think our big brains and attendant psychology are not the survival mechanism we like to think.
Lol. Dueling!
Yes, and it just makes me sick!
How can this equal or superior force be achieved?
Sadly, your idea is the most wishful thinking of all!
There seem to have been times of better, or at least less bad. Times of higher civilisation. They seem to me to feature numerous strong middle ground economic players (whether merchants or landowners) and confidence, energy and drive. A positive shared narrative looking back and forward, a set of shared values. What has been before, can be again. Can we do that now? Can we find enough energy, confidence and courage? Dunno, but I don't intend to have not done whatever it is in my own power to do.
Well, good for you. Really. I admire the intent. But precious little is in our power anymore.
Certainly there were better, more hopeful times. The high-water mark of human civilization occurred within the past 100 years, but things are going downhill at a terrifying rate. Bad trends have been reversed in the past, but times have changed. This time, our decline will very likely continue, spread world-wide, and achieve terminal velocity.
Meanwhile, have a nice day!
The left never retreats. It will withdraw and cease operations for a time. That’s how Republicans in the US get power. The left overextends and the Rs take over. They never do anything though so the left advances again. The left is results oriented. The right is in it for memes.
It’s a ratchet. The left demands. The rest of us compromise. It is never enough though. So they demand again. And we compromise again. And so on. The effect is that we move forever leftward as our government grows as it attempts to supposedly solve more and more problems, though in reality, it just creates more ‘problems’ to justify its continued expansion. There is no end point.
Yup. Until the right learns how to wield power we will live in the cycle you speak of. Personally I focus locally. My reps know me. It’s easier to influence local situations then try to expand upward.
Yes. Local is the key. But perhaps that represents an inbuilt limit on effectiveness. If you become too successful, grow too much, then you are cut down. Tucker is now ‘local’ in a sense. Regardless of how many views he gets, because his platform has its own inherent credibility (or lack of it). Best of luck to you!
Exactly why you don’t give into a bully. If you give in your tormenter knows not to stop.
Wise comments. I have been surprised to see essentially no signs of repentance about all the atrocious mistakes of the COVID debacle. That said, I think this is a misapprehension of how major change happens.
Using stocks as an example, the “bull market” continues even as fewer stocks are driving the continued overall rise, until finally the darlings fail, and the whole market rolls over.
Similarly, there is a whole panoply of bad ideas that have driven/exemplified the COVID abuse/insanity…many of the smaller issues have begun failing even as the overall pandemic authoritarianism apparently continues its bull market unabated, but the movement is being hollowed out - when it comes to mass movements, change comes gradually, then suddenly.
Clearly, we are still in the gradually stage but this part of an inexorable process, the rate of change is shifting.
Above all else the populace wants to be safe and secure, even if they have to be slaves. The elitists are going to deny them the delusion of liberty, the gloves are off. When a recall election comes along the voters retain them. The moral compass is lost along with the ability to use the compass if they were to find it in their sock drawer.
No politician can save humanity. The winners of any election are selected, not elected. Only the most obedient to the WEF, the WHO and the UN will be allowed into office. Only unity amongst humanity can win this battle. Politicians do their best to divide people.
I agree. If you believe the game is rigged you have already conceded that it is their game.
🎯
I think you're right. Re: Tucker Carlson, registered Republicans who sat quietly by while their kids and grandkids were deprived of basic rights (I recall an incident in the state where I lived in which a woman was arrested for driving around without a destination such as a grocery or liquor store--arrested for driving around... in America), those Republicans might have heard TC on Fox and and woken up. TC can have a kajillion "viewers" on Twitter, but they're all his fans already. There's a guy, WelcomeTheEagle88, on Substack, who keeps track of VAERS and informs his readers when the CDC delays or erases reports. He could have a million followers, and it would not change a single thing in this country. If he had five minutes on a major cable network, then the average guy could no longer pretend he didn't know that the feds manipulate VAERS in an opaque (but seemingly malign) way. But no. The PTB are still in charge, and the foot-stamping of the people doesn't rattle them in the slightest.
This. ^^^^ Illegal immigration. Our government knows the vast majority of US citizens are against it. They know it’s terrible for our economy, our safety and our sovereignty. They all know, Dems and Reps. But they are not at all interested in fixing it. They make noise occasionally, but it’s never fixed. I guess there aren’t any kickbacks, no grift to get from securing our borders.
I can only guess at the folks paying Congress to act as if there is no solution to the situation at the US southern border, but I imagine it includes Big Ag (because they need people who are both willing to work for less than minimum wage and ignorant of the dangers of pesticide exposure) and child molesters (O'Keefe did a nice expose a while ago on teens who were entering the US unescorted, then released into the custody of "aunts" or "uncles" whom they had never met). Both R and D, I'm sure, get plenty of cash from just those two groups. And then there's the whole issue of quotas... I'm sure plenty of commercial interests who like things as they are (employers who hire a lot of H1-B visa-enabled individuals, for example) would not want any discussion of redoing the quotas for foreign nationals entering the country. Having the southern border be more secure than it is, is not about hating Mexicans or anything so simplistic. That's just the canard the PTB throw out there to obscure the fact that plenty of Americans (the majority?) would support allowing a substantially larger number of Mexican citizens to enter the country *legally* while stopping child trafficking.
Also, great handle. I cried the first time I read *Holes.*
I think we are seeing a natural endpoint of sorts
For decades, politics and Public Office has attracted a particular type of person, and I would not say said person would be the best of us
We get power seekers, and not the capitalist tycoon types, but the government sorts.
If I compare western democracies to dictatorships, the only salient difference is the former spends more effort on lawfare and media, but the end result is dictatorship by hundreds as opposed to of one. I'd rather the latter, at least I know where I stand, and there is a possibility of someone with a semblance of honor
If only one, he can be done away with and the madness can end -- unless a successor takes over the handy apparatus in place.
I'm hardly advocating for someone like Kim or a monarch or whatever. But its without a doubt that the current system isn't working and has become fortified against getting fixed
Politics and public office attract sociopaths and psychopaths. That's my pet theory.
"I emphatically don’t believe that it’s hopeless..."
There is always hope, but mine grows less emphatic every day. I would welcome a hopeful essay from you sometime. I generally find your analyses to be quite correct, but disheartening.