I have to say that this is the best article I have read on Common Sense, and it goes without saying: that's a high bar. The clear documentation of Twitter's dishonesty, dating back to its very beginning, is breathtaking - and given Twitter's outsized influence on American culture and politics, the value of exposing an all-pervasive but untrustworthy social platform cannot be overstated. Frankly, I've been a little puzzled by this fascist administration/technocrat/Hollywood cabal's near-complete meltdown over Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, but thanks to your article I see the important role that it has played in their evil collusion to bring about The Great Reset. The "problem" with Musk is that he is nearly uncontrollable, and worse - bright and popular.
Once again, Substack and Common Sense prove their worth. Thank you both. We have a great opportunity - maybe our last - on this coming Election Day to begin the reversal of this attempted world-wide coup, and to do it without gunfire (although they have already put the gears in motion for mass starvation, itself a form of murder). If there were ever a time that Your Vote Counts, it's now. We must not fail.
I have even more respect for Musk now than before. I didn't understand how much Twitter contributed to the devolution of media, and the divisiveness of our society, and for him to singlehandedly risk so much of his wealth, and endure the attacks on his reputation, in order to attempt to reverse it is worthy of National Hero status.
Of course the deep state is busily trying to retrieve it’s disinformation megaphone. Democrat senator Chris Murphy has called on the federal government to investigate “national security concerns” raised by Saudi Arabia’s role in financing his twitter takeover, saying “we should be concerned that the Saudi’s, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting US politics”. The irony is precious, and no doubt lost on the dimwitted senator from Connecticut.
He's so much more than a boob. He's a dangerous ideologue who's going to get us all killed. If he doesn't succeed in that, he'll die in office 40 years from now, since CT is a Blue No Matter What state. CT's GOP doesn't know how to read a room and provide suitable challengers. Same applies to that nitwit Blumie.
Yeah. While we beg the Saudis for oil. We elect the dumbest politicians. I’m convinced these dolts fail up. But it also illustrates their hubris and their monopoly on info that they believe we’ll fall for that.
The world is run by C students. Smart people don't care as much what others think about them. Remember high school? The smartest kids in the class had no shot at becoming student body president. Why do you think people like Biden, Fetterman, Herschel Walker, AOC can even believe they can win elections?
This resonates. For years now, I have had this subtle sense that we are back in high school and the "cool kids" are running the show. All while the brilliant dorks are patiently plotting the ultimate "revenge of the nerds." Human nature does not change.
And yet TikTok, wholly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, continues to collect data one millions world wide with no questions asked. I guess Hunter will get a cut of the profits, which makes it okay.
It's a non issue to the extent that they have nowhere near voting control. Alwaleed bin Talal simply swapped his public stake for private - and it remains tiny. Still, CFIUS can be instructed by the administration to examine the deal at any time.
Does it matter? Jim provided all of us with a fantastic description of Elon, we don’t need to know how or why, we need to thank him and pray to God he can rid our world of the trash that we are currently swimming in.
Speaking of respect for Musk, here's a video of yesterday's Falcon rocket launch. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, skip to the 8 minute mark for the landings...
He surrounds himself with extraordinary people and utilizes their skills to facilitate extraordinary things. I'm not an advicate of solar and wind, but the fact that Elon is, makes me uncomfortable with my position. I tend to think he's only in it for the government subsidies, but perhaps I'm wrong.
What! You could be wrong? You are open to evidence? You get nervous when someone smarter than yourself disagrees with you? Throw this man out of church!
I'm very uncomfortable with opinions I hold when they disagree with people I respect. I hate cognitive dissonance and am always seeking to eliminate it. Green energy is one.
COVID was very difficult as many of my friends and aquaintences wrote me off because I couldn't be delicate about my opinions regarding the massive harm we were doing to our society with the gross overreaction to the pandemic, and the hystrionics of Fauci et al. This article explains why much of it happened, and what dissenters are up against.
Jon I feel you, for people like us that just wanted a discussion, a conversation, a nuanced perspective, admitting we don’t know everything but let’s figure it out together. To have that attitude be labeled as dangerous, shamed, cut off, etc. We’ve been living through some darkness both personally and on the global scale. Hopefully it won’t be for nothing
Seems to me that perhaps the most important goal of education should be to teach people to admit that they don't know everything and that sometimes they are wrong.
Jon--uncomfortable w the green energy thing? You should be. I am not pro mining but this link sheds light on the FACTS TODAY regarding copper mining - like it or not. I have a real problem with these folks whooping up solar and wind, and electric vehicles with no concept of what it will take to make those happen on a world scale. And while they drive their EV to protest opening new mines..... https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1584306032653717505.html
I agree with you. I am giving Musk the benefit of the doubt, but I must caution everyone that I have always been naively optimistic. Facebook is so sinister that it is asking me to publicize my cluelessness by sharing my numerous predictions that Trump would win in 2020.
You weren't wrong in that if the 2020 election had been conducted the same as the 2016 election, without media censorship, abruptly changing state election laws, less the tech interference in certain key precincts, and the avoidance of covering theHunter laptop, Trump would be President today.
Yip Jon we definitely would not be in the state we’re in today. As President Trump has told us since the Covid strike MSM and SM are the “enemy of the people” this article tells it all
Anyone who votes for the Dem/Commie party needs to have their heads examined. They are destroying this country and the article above proves it. The entire West Coast is going down the drain just like Union Station.
I listened to Walter Kirn talk and Matt Taibbi on their podcast, and also was impressed with their honesty and candor. Signed up. As a conservative I am eager to listen to rational people on the left. We do agree on some things, not everything, but that’s OK. I wonder if people on the left would seek out, eg, Ben Shapiro (ok, he talks too fast), or Dennis Prager to hear their perspectives.
Josh, wouldn’t it also hold true that “if you agree with someone on everything, that leads to what we see in today’s…” right-wingers as well? If all your news and information comes from Ingram/Hannity/Carlson, etc. wouldn’t that define that person’s political views as not their own? I too enjoy listening to rational voices on all sides of an issue or discussion.
At least every other week I record all of the Sunday talk shows and watch them. I FF through many topics, and the commercials, so it only talkes about 2 hours. I do this just to see the various angles that the MSM is putting on topics. The only conservative show is Media Matters.
Seriously, the left is bereft of rational positions on pretty much every current topis, Abortion and the Ukraine aside,
They're, imho, largely on the wrong side of everything, And once they lost the Moms, who finally divoreced emotion from logic, and realized that between school closures and indoctrination, their children were in danger, they were in trouble. Add to that that Hispanics aren't motivated by the same welfare state, vote buying tactics that the Dems previously employed for minorities, and we're seeing a seismic change in voting patterns.
Then, having Joe and Kamala as the faces of the party is simply embarassing.
I had hoped that those on the left would seek out voices on the right to see where there is common ground. Unfortunately what I found was that many on the left feel that they correct in their thinking and ideology, and therefore on the right side of history. So many don't feel the need to even briefly listen to a conservative opinion or thought.
In other words...When you truly believe that you're right and everyone who doesn't think exactly like you is wrong, why bother listening to an opposing view?
I have mostly liberal friends and family and more or less define myself the same way, or did, until the past few years. I have to agree with your assessment regarding the closed-minded monoculture in which my liberal friends reside. They are spectacularly incurious, unshakeable in their belief that there is one correct worldview (theirs), and so triggered by their media’s talking points that they have meltdowns if the name of one of their ideological enemies is spoken. (For a giggle, I like to mention Tucker Carlson sometimes just to see what happens.)
Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real affliction, and it’s scary to see very smart, well-meaning people driven mad by it.
From personal observation, my theory is that these are particularly fear-based people who were traumatized by the triple whammy of Trump, Covid and their media. They’re addicted to their face masks. The sight of a MAGA hat makes them hyperventilate. I’m not exaggerating. It’s weird.
I am terrified of either side "winning" this election. If the Democrats win, we will be under one-party fascist rule for the foreseeable future. If the Republicans win, the summer of 2020 will look like a mild block party.
Many of us do. I'm center-left but read several sources on the right. What frightens me, though, is how much both sides tear down the ability of the other to govern. When you tell people in TV ads--24/7--that the people who want to govern them are evil and bad then you get a public that thinks everything is evil and bad.
My Congresswoman is a Democrat and her office has been very helpful to me on some matters dealing with a passport. The mayor of my town is a Republican and has also been very helpful to me on some matters dealing with my home. Yet, to listen to the ads, they're both horrible monsters out to destroy America.
When you demonize people, you get worse than that. The latest being a hammer attack on an 82 year old man, then scumbags like Donald Trump Jr. joking about it and smearing the man. It keeps getting worse and worse, and it has to stop.
Do you really think that the drug-addled moron who attacked Pelosi ever watches cable news? Is logged on Twitter? or Truth Social?
These people can't take the time to take their pants off to defecate, and yet the narrative is that they are taking instructions from GOP spokespeople on who to attack, and when?
The only thing this idiot DePape thought he knew is that crime goes unpunished in San Francisco. Little did he realize that some animals on the farm are more equal than others.
All of whom were either assaulted and injured, shot and nearly killed, or stalked with the intention that they and their family are murdered.
If everyone is so worried about Paul Pelosi, why is he being left alone in a mansion with no security and left to drive himself drunk around the Napa Valley? (Where he was in a crash as a teen that killed his brother.)
There is no one in US politics more demonized that Donald Trump, he is the arch-villain in the leftist cult religion, the Emmanuel Goldstein of their Two Minutes Hate.
The dude in Pelosi's attack is an illegal from Canada, former hemp bracelet maker that was married to a nudist (presently imprisoned for pedophilia) in Berkeley.
A grab them by the pussy, mock the handicapped, lying traitor is "demonized"? And "the dude in Pelosi's attack" quotes Don the Con all over his social media? Fake news, right?
Scott D, who do you read? Though I am conservative, I am often embarrassed about how prominent conservative commentators present their views. They often seem unaware of powerful supporting arguments, and instead revert to talking points. Again, I myself am conservative.
I signed up and pay for daily wire and common sense. These people are very smart. I don’t care if they are left or right, even though my views lean right. I will surely listen to both sides.
Ben and Matt are colleagues. Ben interviewed Matt on his Sunday Special, Ep. 127, back in June of this year. Matt is a liberal person, but he is generously open-minded and seeks out all kinds of people. His beat as a journalist includes media and political corruption, and he takes particular delight in making fun of hypocrisy and garden-variety stupidity on the liberal side, because that would be more his team, if he had a team. His weekly news unpacking episodes with Walter Kirn are a highlight of my week.
That surprises me. I haven't heard Prager for a while, but a few years ago, I listened to him 2-3 times a week, and found that he was usually pretty thought provoking. But not always, of course! No one gets it right all the time.
I like Dennis but I find him redundant and over-preoccupied with the transgender thing. I think it's nuts and would never "transition" my kid, but there are lots of other issues besides that right now that concern and personally affect me more. He can be good when he freshens and mixes up his topics, but sometimes listening to his droning voice go on about "men give birth" I just turn it off. And again, I think that concept is nuts.
This little thread seems to be “our people.” I too lean conservative, but appreciate thoughtful, reasonable, liberals. Apart from Prager, do we have anyone from our perspective to recommend to the potentially open liberals? I am conservative, but sometimes I’m embarrassed by people like Levin, or Savage. Sometimes even Hannity falls back on talking points, and doesn’t seem to think deeply. Limbaugh, for all of his controversy, and occasional unserious-ness, knew how to think.
I often agree with Levin but he needs to stop shouting and be less angry. Hannity is more likable but he's extremely repetitive and redundant, showing the same clips of Maxine Waters, Schumer et al over and over. Please get new material.
I'm so glad you thought of Murray! I think he's brilliant, and I love having the perspective of a Brit. If you haven't read it, The Madness of Crowds is excellent; it was published in 2019 but foretells all the things that went on in 2020. I haven't read his new one though.
I have a number of suggestions for you, so many in fact, that I'll just give you their names with not much detail, so you'll have some homework to do, if you don't mind. I'm focusing here mainly on the work being done by Black conservatives, who are essentially ignored by the mainstream media. And yet they prevail!
Black conservatives share a disdain for BLM-style critical theory and eschew the victim mentality that is so popular on that side. They tend to be entrepreneurial and fiercely anti-communist. Many have deep backgrounds in the civil rights movement and others are up and coming. Politically, they run the gamut from very conservative (like Larry Elder and Candace Owens, neither of whom would appeal very much to liberals) to liberal but not woke (like linguistics professor and author, John McWhorter, and podcast host and musician, Coleman Hughes, two brilliant people). McWhorter does twice-monthly conversations with Glenn Loury, professor of economics at Brown University, which are outstanding, and Prof. Loury also interviews intellectuals and professors with whom he's established close relationships over a long career.
Others channel their conservative values in concrete directions: charter schools (Ian Rowe) and community organizing (Robert L. Woodson's Woodson Center). There's the organization Braver Angels, and its founder, John Wood, Jr. And I must mention Shelby Steele, award-winning author of many books, and, with his son Eli, a documentarian. Their film, "What Killed Michael Brown?" can be viewed on Amazon and is well worth whatever they're charging for it these days. Then there's Wilfred Reilly, professor of political science, who wrote the book "Hate Crime Hoax," and Erec Smith, professor of rhetoric and co-founder of the website "Free Black Thought." Also check out the remarkable Chloe Valdary, who invented an alternative to diversity, equity and inclusion brainwashing trainings through her organization, "The Theory of Enchantment."
I'd also suggest that you seek out heterodox thinkers of any race, rather than conservatives per se. Many exiles from the left exist in this space; I'd consider myself one of those. Get on the mailing list of the Australian journal, Quillette. Even if you don't subscribe, you'll have access to a range of intellectually stimulating and eclectic writings across the political spectrum that eschew the far right or far left. In the heterodox category I'd place Konstantin Kisin, a British-Jewish immigrant from Russia who co-hosts the Triggernometry podcast. See his new book, "An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West." And I concur with the suggestion to check out Douglas Murray.
This list is far from exhaustive and I apologize to all the wonderful people I've neglected to mention here.
I just listened to a clip of a podcast of “the two black guys” Loury and McWhorter, where Loury rips Ibram X Kendi a new one. Lots of words I won’t repeat, but Loury concludes Kendi is not worthy to carry his book bag. LOL!
I first noticed Coleman Hughes when he was a kid at Columbia. His writing was remarkable and only 22 yr old. Knew he would go far.
Quillette can be interesting, at times.
Two others I follow— Husband/wife team of evolutionary biologists, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, Dark horse podcast. They have been fearless and unapologetic exposing the covid fake science.
Bret and Heather got me through the pandemic. They started talking about the lab-leak hypothesis in APRIL 2020! with gain-of-function research and off-label uses of patented medications to treat the virus not far behind. Wow.
Thanks Beeswax. I have read books by Steele, Reilly, McWhorter, Murray, and also Thomas Sowell, and I have heard Glen Loury's podcast. I'm definitely a consumer of heterodox writing, but I have been mostly consuming books, rather than podcasts or essays. Also, you do mention a few names new to me, and I thank you for that.
Any thoughts on a specific podcast or show (so few people read books nowadays; as an author, that kills me!)that I can recommend to a liberal who is just beginning to realize maybe not all is well in paradise? Other than CS of course, that goes without saying.
Tom, one quick amendment to the information I gave you on Nov. 3. I'm rescinding my recommendation of "The Fifth Column" podcast. It's very entertaining and informative, but it doesn't really fit your criterion of something that a liberal person might listen to, learn something from and enjoy. Those guys are pretty raucous and they don't mince words.
Instead, I'd suggest the Clifton Duncan Podcast, which I just discovered. His range of guests is impressive. He defines himself as non-woke but not on the right, more-or-less heterodox, I assume.
Hi Tom, You're way ahead of me. I can't believe that I forgot Thomas Sowell!
In terms of podcasts, I recommend Coleman Hughes' "Conversations with Coleman," which is eclectic and not always focused on politics, so one can choose to listen based on the subject matter. I sometimes enjoy the podcast Fifth Column, with host Kmele Foster and two other right-leaning guys. Foster does investigative journalism and podcasts for Bari Weiss, and occasionally appears as a commentator on Fox. Bari's podcast, Honestly, is very good. I also recommend the podcast "So To Speak: The Free Speech Podcast," which discusses cases or issues in the news from the perspective of prior precedents and current litigation. The guests are First Amendment attorneys who specialize in these types of cases. This podcast leans neither right or left, which is appropriate.
In terms of books, I can recommend a few, although I admit that I don't read as much as I used to because my eyesight is lousy and I find it easier to listen. Thomas Chatterton Williams has written several interesting books from the perspective of a mixed-race man who believes that "race" is a spurious identity category that should become obsolete.
A socialist friend gave me an excellent book from a left-wing perspective on the phenomenon of left-wing intolerance and cancel culture: "Cancel This Book - The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture," by labor and human rights attorney Dan Kovalik. Kovalik is one of those rare leftists who will critique his own side.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a successful entrepreneur and renaissance man. His book "Woke Inc." is a tour de force. He has just released a new book which I look forward to reading, "Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence." As a die-hard capitalist, Ramaswamy will challenge your liberal friends, but his analysis of how big business has been corrupted by woke politics is hard to refute and very compelling.
Lastly I'd like to put in a plug for Portland-based documentary filmmaker Travis Brown, whose Locals community I'm a member of. Brown's project, The Woke Reformation/The Signal Productions, is ongoing. You'll find him on YouTube. He's done great interviews with right and left leaning intellectuals who are not woke, e.g., Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, Peter Boghossian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michael Shermer, Asra Nomani, among others.
There are a few who manage to keep things civil in spite of disagreeing. But the trolls are all Leftists. I haven't seen even a purported right-wing troll since the guy who claimed to be a far-right Jew (despite occasionally oopsing Leftist ideology) was kicked off.
Dave Rubin. I LOVE him. His Rubin Report can be found on YouTube and Locals.com. He actually founded Locals.com. I can never go too many days without my Dave fix. Yes, I crush on him. (I consider myself one of his straight-woman groupies, lol.) He's a gay man married to another man and is a self-described classic liberal and former Democratic activist who's been red-pilled. After Newsom won the recall election, he moved from California to Florida.
He comes across as a really normal, likable guy, talks in a modulated voice and doesn't yell, he's funny, and he mixes up topics enough so his show doesn't get stale.
"One definition of “paranoia” is suspecting the truth too early, before your therapist reads it in The Times."
As a Military family living on the "East Side" for many many years, I can't believe how well this quote and Substack was written. Honestly don't want to screw it up with my bad comment writing!!
I am a "Substacker", for now. (Left The Times in 2020, UnHerd is losing its Covid magic...)
I did the same thing--as a lifelong reader of the WSJ, it kills me how their “news”reporting has gotten so biased. Their opinion page has kept its integrity, but I am spending my media dollars (meager though they are) on those who still think that facts are important. Substack is a great outlet.
WSJ used to be a good center-right, sane alternative to the MSM, but started to go the way of the Washington Post beginning in about 2017. After the George Floyd thing, they acted like they were racing to catch the last train to Wokeville. Sad. I still read it for their op-ed page. What made them unique is that they were always first and foremost a business newspaper. Now there's no distinction between them and any other liberal major national paper.
I left the NYT before that when I'd had it with all the "Trans" glorification opinion pieces by "Jennifer" Boylan with zero balancing opinions by, say, Abigail Shrier.
"Jennifer" is still married to the same woman with whom he had two sons. One of the opinion pieces was about the amazing joy of son Zack following in his footsteps and "transitioning " to "Zaira".
"Jennifer" and "Zaira" are true women, not men in woman face at all, are they! I don't care if such people want to wear dresses and have fake breasts but the rest of society should not be bullied into agreeing with them that they *are* women under the law or in sports, etc.. And we should not preach Radical Gender Dogma in schools with Drag Queens who are about adult entertainment. Being kind to others is one thing, but being soft in the head to the point of harming young people is another. We've been duped.
If an adult 5’6”, 80 lb woman went to the doctor, told him she was fat and wanted to have her small intestine removed so she could lose more weight, should the doctor agree she IS fat, and performs the life altering surgery? Of course not! Yet doctors are doing something comparable to that when they “affirm” that people with ovaries are men and people with penises are women. This is insanity and we as a society have to push back.
Of course, I am a mere person with ovaries who has birthed children a few times - not a mother. These women with penises must know better than I do! :-0
Gender dysphoria is the only psychiatric disorder currently being treated with surgery. I say currently, because psychosis used to be treated with lobotomy. As we all know, that has worked out well.
And, I think the gender dysphoria psychiatric disorder is pretty rare. All these kids/young people have been led to believe they suffer from it because they feel they are weird, they are uncomfortable with puberty, don't have a ton of friends, their interests are "different", whatever. Then, they go down this cult garden path.
I defy anyone who has gone through adolescence to deny they felt awkward, uncomfortable in their body, or wished they were someone else! It doesn't mean the adolescent is unhealthy, quite the opposite. Making the normal maelstrom of adolescence into something that must be medicated or cut out denies the possibility of maturation.
The apoplectic response underscores what many of us have long known and the Left has long denied—Twitter is overwhelmingly biased against conservative users, so much so that the platform has become a critical part of the Left’s ecosystem, an activist extension of progressive orthodoxies thanks in large part to its employees.
Twitter’s user base is also overwhelmingly left-wing. According to Pew, 10% of users generate 92% of all tweets, and 7 out of 10 of these users are liberal. Using this data, Brian Riedl, a budget and tax expert, calculated last year that if Twitter were a congressional district, it would have a partisan voter index (PVI) of D+43. Today, that would tie it with Washington D.C., the most liberal district in the country.
The activist progressive orthodoxies of the employees were the primary reason Musk needed to fire so many of them in order to move forward. And like most Leftist organizations, it turns out that there were about 10 people "managing" for every 1 person actually working.
I was ready to type nearly the same first sentence you did and then saw your post. As of now, I have avoided joining twitter because I was turned off by the limitations of a "sound byte" in written form. Watching the world get manipulated by it was confusing at first but I eventually realized from the reports of ones I knew that it had become a government tool for propaganda.
Now it has been confirmed.
Twitter seems like such a cesspool of a circle jerk, opening it to sunlight could reduce it to a shell of it's former self. I don't know if I ever will join but if Musk follows through with his transparency plans I may to support free speech.
Twitter is definitely an acquired taste. I've gotten the most benefit by being very careful about who I follow; following every person who follows you is not a good approach. Yesterday I even unfollowed someone I agree with politically, but who spends most of their time trading insults with trolls.
100% agree with you--I had exactly the same thought as I was reading this! A superb and exceptionally illuminating piece of important journalism. Mike Solana's (works with Peter Thiel at Founders Fund) piece last night is a worthy companion to Kirn's first class article: https://www.piratewires.com/p/fud/comments
Many on Twitter pointed out that this is a HUGE story--possibly the most important story of the year--but the only response Leftists could muster was complaining that the guy who was instrumental in uncovering it went on Fox News to talk about it.
Agreed. What people forget is that government is power. Period, nothing more. And when they abuse that power, stopping it is top priority. If you want the perfect example, witness yesterday's jailing of the top officials in True The Vote for refusing to reveal their sources.
The EU has made it clear that none of this free speech nonsense will be allowed to cross the pond. Europe will be a free speech no-go zone. Mr musk will have to deal with the EU whether he likes it or not. That will be an interesting fight. Will he engage or give in?
Unlike my Boy Hussein, Elon really IS smarter than ten million people. Watching him work is like watching the Orange Man play 4-dimensional chess with the sad American politicians. If I don't understand what Musk is doing, I just assume it's because he's four moves ahead somewhere up along the z-axis.
EU May have to engage with Elon he is supplying satellite coverage to the Ukraine so far for free so they might have to change their tune regarding Elon Musk and do mega engaging
Jim, I couldn't have responded any better than this. Thanks to the author for opening the window on the shenanigans regularly take placing on Twitter that most of us never knew was happening.
I am less than impressed with most of the Republicans, especially those of the Establishment variety. But I have little faith in third parties.
Andrew Yang's Forward Party seems to be economically far Left (he still supports "universal income," as far as I can tell), and moderate only on a few social issues.
I voted for Libertarian presidential candidates from 2004 to 2016, but I'm too pragmatic of a small-L libertarian to support their party on the whole.
I wish Musk would organize a moderate Independent party. He has the clout to succeed at it. But since he isn't eligible to be a POTUS candidate, there isn't much incentive for him to do it.
Watching phony, deranged liberals flip out over Musk's promise not to censor opinions they don't like is, for actual liberals, both a joy and a terror.
It’s concerning to me that we’ll read this article and still ignore the reality of what social media actually is. It’s “Contagious, the Jonah Brenner book, brought to life. Social media was created with fine intentions - but it’s been eminent domained under control of the government with just compensation to the owners in the form of massive ad spending and 0% interest rates for acquisition of competing platforms to create large and infinitely controllable platforms all under common ownership.
No one can save social media - and the faux liberals you mention aren’t real people expressing real ideas - they’re paid employees posting what their job requires of them, the same as any other social media manager at any company.
The issue we face as a society evaluating social media is we still don’t understand what it is …. Musk may change that (a pay to play model is an absolute must - but only a start), but his owning the platform alone changes nothing.
Musk has accomplished a lot of great things - he’s also taken a LOT of government money to produce specifically the things they’ve asked him to produce and how and where they’ve asked him to produce it - so assuming Twitter will be returned to the people is like assuming Marcus Aurelius’ dream was actually going to come true just because he wished it (before he was murdered)
The mask is off. They are saying the quiet part out loud. They're freaking out that they're losing their biased, one-sided echo chamber and control and information and aren't even trying to pretend otherwise.
Sorry. I disagree. Self censorship on Musk’s part tells me he has no answer to the free speech issues he just bought into at Twitter.
He writes something, then pulls it when it gets the wrong attention. It’s controversial, perhaps embarrassing, or stupid, no matter, he withdraws it. And he’s the owner!
How will he defend your comment when the mob comes after it? He’ll axe it. Will he blame Homeland Security? The Big Censor in the Sky? Thats easy.
Musk is morally ambivalent. No strength of conviction, just looking for a ploy for continued attention from suckers like us.
Does that mean you're ready to vote for some deplorable conservatives? Because if it doesn't, it's a hollow sentiment.
This will end only when the liberals realize the progressives are more dangerous than the conservatives. I think we're still a ways away from that. Libs have spent too many decades demonizing religious people as homophobic and conservatives as sexist, racist pigs. That kind of hatred requires a lot of cognitive dissonance to overcome. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we're there yet.
Kirn's essay validates my decision to subscribe to Common Sense. He eloquently states what I have been convinced is true since before the pandemic, and what has been undeniably proven since it began: we are being censored and cancelled for deviating from any narrative preferred by the left. I know personally of friends and family members that have been placed in Twitter or FB jail for simply liking a post that went against the party line. I have received warnings that I was skirting to close to boundaries that may not be crossed, e.g. any criticism of Anthony Fauci or suggestion of doubt about the value of mandated vaccination for Covid. The same goes for critical race theory and its validity, and the rush to insert diversity, equity, and inclusion in every corner of society. In my own organization, the American College of Surgeons, in which I have been a Fellow for thirty years, I was permanently banned from posting on its online forums for questioning the College's adoption of the premise that it (the College) is systemically racist, that surgeons are all racists, and that the surgery as practiced today is racist. All of this is to be accepted without a shred of evidence. To question this is to be gaslighted and muzzled. Kudos to Kirn and to Common Sense for posting.....well....common sense.
All of the professional organizations have been captured by leftist lunatics. My own bar association if full out woke and deranged. My question is whether the members actually believe this drivel. If not, we should all arise. If so, we are in way more trouble than you or I ever thought.
In my career, and I belonged to many different professional organizations, I observed that the leadership of professional societies was never populated by individuals who accomplished immpressive things, but, like our goverment, was where lower tier performers went to get their impression of 'stature'. Most of what they did was useless, and symbolic. It all seemed to revolve around planning conferences/retreats in which they'd all contribute a boring/cardboard 50 minute talk while the audience pretended to pay attention.
I always sat in the back corner of the room so I could exit within 10 minutes or so.
My guess is some are true believers, some aren't. It's a way to hold onto power without actually doing anything. My professional association -the APA- is the same. You would THINK psychology professionals would be more focused on the individual and resistant to models that throw the word "systemic" in front of something and call it a day but, sadly, they aren't.
Systemic = almost impossible to fix so we’re screwed. Existential= life and death so if you don’t do what I want, we’re all going to die. This language intentionally or not, breeds despair of all kinds of varieties.
Seems to be true. When I was in medical school (50th reunion this coming May), joining the AMA wasn’t even a question; it was a given. SAMA—student AMA—was offered, free, and came with bennies. Sometime in the late 70s-early 80s, it lurched strongly to the left. Doctors generally don’t like being pushed around and being told what to think. I’ve heard that at one point, something shy of 20% of MDs in the US were members. I gave up on it in the 80s when they did several things: advocated against Israel defending itself, advocated against guns, and advocated for candidates like Clinton. Since those days, it’s gone even farther to the left.
JAMA used to be a valid journal. Now you get to read articles about how inequitable medicine has been racially and how people do not have access to “healthcare,” whatever that is. I have yet to find an instance of someone being denied medical care because of means, but perhaps it really does happen. Can’t be common. To look at JAMA, it’s an outright epidemic.
Bottom line is that AMA no longer represents the face of rational medicine. It might be saved, though, by accreting to itself the hearts and minds of the newly graduating wokies. Good luck finding a rational doctor in 15 years.
I was a lifelong Hospital Administrator and couldn't believe when the AMA and AHA threw their weight beging the ACA. Granted, they were blackmailed by threats of what CMS would do to Medicare if they didn't go along, but still.
I am on a FB page for my state's lawyers. My assessment is that many of those are thoroughly indoctrinated. For example during the Covid lockdowns potential clients were looking for relief. Naturally they sought legal advice and I was astonished at the number who went on FB to berate these people. Then after it was obvious that the lockdowns went too far and courts needed to be in person they shrieked, ranted, and raved. Their li-i-i-ives were simply not worth the risk. I was and am embarrassed.
Yeah, a lot of people were exposed during that period.
I was shocked by how little information people processed before making their opinion, and how trusting they were of people who had done nothing to deserve that respect other that occupy a position of power.
It was apparent that Fauci was a mistake in March/April of 2020, and none of the factual data available at that time supported the call for draconian measures that were coming out of the CDC, FDA, NEA and Democrat party. Immeasurable harm was done.
I sincerely hope that the American College of Surgeons will start absorbing the stories of "detransitioners" like Ritchie Herron, Sinead Watson and Helena Kerschner. There is a new generation of individuals who got sucked into the gender ideology cult and rushed to double mastectomies of healthy breasts, removal of male or female genitals and regret the choices. The rest of us are learning not to trust the field of medicine. I know this story well, by ex-husband rushed into this path, now claims to be me, the mother of our children. I literally have the wrongthink of the diagnosing PhD psychologist, Dr. Chrisitine Wheeler (diagnosis in 1 appt.) in a sworn affidativit, submitted in New York State Supreme Court during the divorce.
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
Wow—my deepest sympathies to you and your children for this horrific tragedy. It sounds like a surreal nightmare for you and your children to be forcibly dragged through your husband’s madness while his delusions were being facilitated by sinister medical professionals misusing their technical expertise. I’ll read your book.
Thanks! It is available in eBook form as well as soft cover and contains 50 nature photos. I suggest that everyone request copies for their local libraries wherever they take same. Libraries are the trenches, just like schools. For excerpts and links to quality studies calling the entire diagnosis into question:
"One definition of “paranoia” is suspecting the truth too early, before your therapist reads it in The Times. " What a fantastic line, I plan to steal it.
After watching “news” gradually become more and more a report of what is said on Twitter - and knowing how my own large tree of friendship had been severely pruned during the past four years, I was looking forward to the changes Musk would bring. I joined Twitter the day he bought it so I could see for myself what is said and by whom.
I learned a lot from this article (like I often do from Walter Kirn) and I love the way his mind works. His "turn of phrase" hearkens back to a time when speech was evocative of the emotional underplay. He so often captures what is resonating between my mind and spirit. Thanks Mr. Kirn.
I never went near Twitter…until now. With Musk running things I decided to see what it’s all about. The story I’ve been tracking is the Paul Pelosi incident. I wanted to see what got posted since the media are doing a, not surprisingly, lousy job of figuring out what happened. So many questions, so little curiosity. Such a rush to declare it a right wing attack. So I started posting questions—
We know he lived in Berkeley in some sort of hovel with BLM and LGBTQ posters, had a weird relationship with a woman, had a couple kids, indulged in nudism and drugs…how does this point to right wing? I mean, where are his guns? Next, How did he get to Pelosi’s house? At 2am? Walking? Car? Maybe there’s an accomplice? He had a backpack with zip ties, a hammer and a rope….yet he’s charged with kidnapping? Uh…no car, no gun..a husband who would resist…maybe even live in staff, who knows, but people on Twitter adamantly post that because he said he wanted to kidnap Nancy, he should be charged. Doesn’t matter that she wasn’t there. I think, maybe an insanity plea makes more sense. Next, the security system. Hello? Are we to believe the Pelosis didn’t have one? Video sure would answer a lot of questions. Yet this isn’t discussed? Smells fishy. Next, the whole homosexual thing. Being in their underwear. Please. Men sleep in their underwear at 2am. Depape was a loony nudist. If there is any truth to the underwear thing, jumping to some hook-up explanation is dumb. Lots of that on Twitter. And lots of proclamations of the Pelosi’s victimhood at the hands of evil right wingers who are a threat to democracy. But given the state of SF, can anyone be surprised that a drug addled, homeless, psychotic person broke into a home? Why would anyone assume he has a coherent political thought?
Once Nancy is in the minority, maybe she can turn her focus to the city she has represented for decades, as it declined into chaos and human excrement on the streets.
At least my questions on Twitter haven’t been disappeared.
Like clothing sizes have been fiddled with so fat people feel thin: I think you’ll find that ‘100’ used to be ‘80’. A ‘median’ of any collection of items only means the middle number. It changes in actual measurement of anything if the proportion of items above and below it changes. So, the actual level of intelligence represented by ‘100’ now could well mean-and I think it does- that the people who used to represent sub-median values are now more numerous and that makes them the median. We have achieved ‘idiocracy’. Obvious to anyone reading warning labels now, ie “remove pizza from box before eating”, or ‘don’t eat detergent pods’
One of them was interviewed by Tucker Carlson. His comments were galling (basically it is our fault for believing the disinformation in the letter) and his body language was telling.
I can't remember when I joined Twitter, but I have mostly ignored it for years. But when Elon Musk announced his intentions last spring, I decided to go back. I was less and less comfortable posting political material on Facebook, even though I limited the reach of those posts to a smaller and smaller circle. Twitter under Musk seemed like the perfect outlet for my information-sharing frustrations.
It has been that. Although it may not be a good thing for my stress level and my time use.
I just joined twitter, too. Been watching the Pelosi story and also the overwhelmingly negative response to Emily Oster's article in The Atlantic requesting 'pandemic amnesty.' That has made me happy.
I have not joined yet. From.my reading the bots and trolls are still active. I think that is probably why Musk gave control to the Tesla coders. For example it was reported that there was an increase in the use of a particular racist slur after Musk' takeover. Wich drew the ire of no less a personage than LeBron James (that is sarcasm). Twitter was able to immediately respond that there were about 25,000 such uses from 300 accounts (figures are from memory). I am impressed. But being a natural skeptic I am wary of going from the frying pan into the fire.
It was quite splendid how rapidly the new coders were able to identify the (foreign) bots responsible and shut them down. Getting rid of all the bots should be one of the top priorities (right after taking down the sharers of child porn).
The use of the n word slur is a flip of the bird at the idpol pearl clutchers deployed by obnoxious non conformist kids of all ages. It's a gesture of censorship defiance and solidarity in free speech (and a dash of cultural appropriation, LOL). It's usage is not exclusive to or indicative of hard core racism from what I've seen. I fully expect its usage on Twitter will settle down shortly, if it hasn't already. The kids will have had their bird flipping fun and will go back to their usual hangouts.
Interestingly, my only personal observation of the word's use was by black people (finally able to openly talk about it) and Leftists claiming that all the right-wing "racists" were going to start using it on the regular. And black conservatives did not hesitate to point out that white Leftists use slurs on the regular to describe black conservatives.
It is a word thst is universally accepted as racist and I chose to use slur to describe it. I do take your point that "slur" is abused as is "racist" and "racism" to the point where the meaning is diluted. And my larger point illustrated your point - it was done by bots and trolls to inflame readers.
Your questions you have asked make very valid points and will be on Twitter for a while will probably gather a few ticks. The only reason it will remain is because Elon has control otherwise it would never reached its current status
Great, just great. For his next salvo, could Mr. Kirn expose the "fact check" business, in which we are told, time after time after time, what the apparatchiks of the deep state expect us to believe?
Then he could take a whack at the Covid-era headline, "What You Need to Know," which is seen regularly in news media whose members are illiterate in math and science -- and, not infrequently, in basic grammar.
I think the chasm between when you entered the field and where it is today can be blamed on the idea that many of your colleagues think they are smarter than their readers & viewers. When you have a group of journalists who look down on the very people who read or view their content, it becomes okay, even an imperative to set the "Correct & proper" agenda. To properly educate the consumer.
Generally, I think journalism is where it is today because of the idea that many (not all) journalists feel they are the smartest people in the room.
I think you may be right about the current state of what passes for journalism. But I have come to understand (in part due to a fellow CSer, Shane) that it is a result of the death of newspaper journalism. In essence for most of the 1900s newspapers were the source of news. People paid for papers so papers could afford writers. People bought more papers so papers could afford staff. People bought more papers so powerful editors arose in the newspapers staff. Those editors created what I know as journalistic integrity and standards. Then the internet came along. People quit buying papers. The system collapsed and the idea of journalistic accountability is non-existent at this time.
Lynne, I would add when the newspapers were replaced by the Internet, the economics changed dramatically when you contrast the two. A newspaper journalist had time to check the facts, do some research, question the players, etc. and then if worthy, the editors would edit and run the story and people would buy the newspaper. Once we moved to a click based economy, and 24/7 instant news cycles, it put the economic survival of “news” outlets in the “get it out there first and get the clicks” mode rather than “get it out there right even if we will not survive mode.”
There are still "powerful editors" in other (more "modern") media (TV, radio, Twitter, Insta, etc.). The problem is they were all educated in the "modern" version of the U.S. university/journalism school. THAT'S the problem.
Both, I suspect. When the Leftward shift began, it was mostly that education "radicalized" journalism students. But the further Left the Media gets, the more students are attracted to it because it allows them a bully pulpit for their already-existing activism.
"What you need to know"... That expression really rankles me. 90% of what follows that expression now invariably turns out to be false and 50% of it is manipulative propaganda (largely redundant, I know).
I don't. I have a yahoo email and I get a feed there, althoughaybe feed is the wrong word. I like a lot of sources so I read it sometimes. The Explainer thing cracks me up.
This is a good first look behind the curtain, but I would like to see Bari dig deeper into the disturbing revelation that the social media companies gave the government their own private backdoor for requesting the suppression of information.
Such a level of incest between companies, media, and government is the very hallmark of totalitarianism.
Can anyone name a tolerant open society or country that sought to control the media,communication and thought? Conversely, a totalitarian society that did not?
In my time two books have stood out. The first, The Micro Millenium, was a glimpse into the future of computers and tech, and if I'd paid it heed, I would be a very rich man today.
The second, Killing Time, by the brilliant Caleb Carr, predicted just the sort of chilling manipulation of information that is occurring today with our technocrat overseers and our gangster government. It was chilling then but not so much as now because we weren't wedded to tech when the book was penned in the way we are now.
A third book, the over used but still relevant 1984, caught the mindset correctly but couldn't begin to conceive of the ubiquity of tech and the evil of its masters. Could you imagine the cackles of delight if Stalin and Beria had access to the tech of today? Not much better knowing it's in the hands of Merrick Garland, Zuckerberg and Google. So sad that we had to rely on the fluke of luck that Musk would be a billionaire. A free and independent people would never have stood for censorship like this.
“A free and independent people would never have stood for censorship like this.”
Matt Walsh made the point yesterday that the 2 1/2 year COVID “interlude” of (attempted) government and media mind control ALMOST worked. To his mind, the fact that 99% of Americans have rapidly discarded all trappings of the pandemic indicates TPTB were able to temporarily shift our behavior (it turns out wrongly in many cases), but were unable to fundamentally change the way we THINK. IOW, we escaped just in time! Go Elon!
I saw a YouTube video of the brilliant and eloquent Glenn Loury (he's got his own channel) in a discussion with the equally brilliant John McWhorter. He called Ibram X a shallow half wit (in much more colorful language). It was great....
I’ve been watching my liberal friends melt down over the Twitter takeover. One posted a screenshot of his iPhone screen with a gap where the twitter app was. Another posted, in complete seriousness, “you all realize Musk is a Bond villain right”. It amuses me to no end, how worried they are about having to face opposing views. And let’s not forget that yesterday the ACLU tweeted that they were concerned about the government’s role in controlling content on social media. Perhaps the times are changing.
The ACLU is a bunch of left wing hacks. It is shocking they even care about the government's role in censorship because lately they appear to me to be an arm of that entire complex.
The comments on their tweet took notice of the ACLU's more recent history. Some suggested the account must have been hacked.
I can't help thinking it's a self-serving pivot. People on Twitter are deeply angry about these revelations. An Atlantic piece on Covid Amnesty--essentially a plea for everyone to forgive and forget the lockdowns that destroyed small businesses and separated families from their dying loved ones, the vaccine mandates that deprived people of their jobs, and the school closures that have harmed children--not only got ratioed radically, it set off an upswelling of anger toward those who were responsible for all that.
Well, when you no longer control the platform used to control the narrative, therefore no longer having the protection of said platform...Your words now have to stand on their own. And when they illicit negative feedback, the author of the words has to actually defend them.
Which to me is delicious irony. Because since Twitter became politicized, those on the left and/or those with "correct thoughts and opinions" were very quick to tell conservatives that they didn't have a right not to have their ideas challenged.
We'll have to see how THAT goes when the shoe is on the other foot.
The rage of the Leftists on the platform is a delicious irony. When Musk proposed a monthly fee for blue-checks, millionaire (or is it billionaire?) Steven King bitched about it and was roundly called out for his elitism.
"Emerging from the dimness of Plato’s Cave into the dazzle of daytime may take a while—we grew sleepier than perhaps we even knew. I say let the wild rumpus begin." Applause.
Wild rumpus it was, and it was fun, bracing at times, but most everyone could speak their mind.
During the rise of BLM, I was asked by a member; do you believe Black Lives Matter? I responded yes, I do, and it’s covered under “all” lives matter. Not good enough. This person/bot insists I say the words “only Black Lives Matter,”
I refused and being a note taker, I fired back in rapid succession victims of black-on-black violence, asking, “what about this life, did it matter?”
Turns out, no, they didn’t. The narrative was set, and just a few years later, the instigators of that bullshi% are real estate investors using the contributions of rubes to enrich themselves!
Having lived in Baltimore City I can attest to this. Currently there are 282 murders in the city, and not a BLM protest to be seen. No BLM statements about how much Black Lives Matter. Nothing.
So you are correct, some Black Lives Matter, while most others don't.
The Founding Fathers knew what they were about when they made Freedom of Speech the First Amendment.
The truth is coming out. It can only be suppressed for so long.
Let us hope the new Congress will investigate the (fascistic) collusion between government and Big Tech and draft legislation to end it. These government agencies that have been shown to be hopelessly corrupt need to be broken up. They have become true enemies of the people. As an example, Homeland Security is aiding and abetting homeland insecurity by attempting to control speech and by encouraging massive waves of illegal migrants into the country. The Dept of Justice is anything but. We know there are now two different standards of justice: one for Trump supporters, and one for Democrats. The FBI has become a horror and a joke.
They won't investigate. Republicans have zero balls and zero backbone. They have never have. I would love for them to do it but they won't. It pisses me off. The problem also is the Democrats are embedded in the DOJ and the FBI
Totally agree. As long as we continue to support and believe in the duopoly, nothing will change. Remember, it was republicans who ushered in the DHS and its vast expansion of the security state. Ive been telling people this for a while now but the current version of the DNC and left politics looks strikingly similar to George W Bush's GOP with a couple of small superficial differences. Replace the religious dogma of the "moral majority" with today's dogma of "wokeness" and the Iraq war with Ukraine and everything else is the exact same. In many cases, its literally the same people on TV making the same arguments. They're just on CNN instead of Fox this time. Republicans have been pulled into a position of seeming moderate and defending individual liberty but thats only because the left has control of the levers of power which the right seeks to retake. It has nothing to do with values. If/when they are back in control (and that would be of more than just congress bc the left would still control the media, both old and new), they'll do the exact same things. They'll just sell it in different wrapping.
Agree. Give me term limits, stricter rules around campaign money and short election cycles. A single or at least non-consecutive 6 year presidential term wouldn’t hurt either.
No, it can't be. It can be suppressed for 75 years more (JFK assassination), or 66 years more (Marc Rich), or 6 years (Muller's investigation; government collusion with Big Tech and the MSM). But it can't be suppressed forever.
Exceptional. It's the articles and introduction to authors like this that confirm my decision to subscribe to Common Sense.
This insight alone is critically important:
"...the period when the American establishment sought to control the flow of information in much the same way it once pursued dominion over resources such as land and oil."
Your observations of how the press generates and conforms to "group think" - are also incredibly revealing.
There is (what I think) an under appreciated book "The Wisdom of Crowds" by Surowiecki - when you read it you come away thinking that the "wisdom of crowds" exists when a problem is solved independently by a large number of people - and then the solutions filtered for the best answers. The exact opposite of the 'group think' created by the current version of Twitter.
BTW - when I subscribed to Unbound - the last thing the code did was ask me to Tweet my decision. Yech. (But I'll be a regular reader.)
I didn't vote for Obama, but in 2008, I genuinely hoped he would fulfill many of his campaign promises. He was supposed to take meaningful action for the benefit of black people, but he didn't. Instead he did his best to magnify and even incite racial conflict. He was supposed to shut down Guantanamo, but he didn't. He was supposed to get us out of wars in the Middle East, but he got us into even more.
The only promise he fulfilled was "Obamacare," which I knew would become a shitshow the moment he revealed that insurance companies (a huge part of the problem) would be front and center. The only "benefit" most Americans have gotten from Obamacare is tripled insurance premiums and (at least) doubled deductibles.
I fell hard for the Hope & Change enchantment in '08 and became bitter and angry by '12 and voted Justice Party instead. Obama was Bush III. Mr. Wall St and War, all the way. It was sickening. One of the things that just kills me is that Trump's rise was an obvious reaction to the Obama betrayals. Of all the Globalist Neocon Uniparty betrayals of the past 4 decades, really. No Donkey will examine or admit that. Still! Oh, no. It was racism and misogyny! And now it's full steam ahead into WW3 and a crashing economy with Doddering Joe, the Progressive IDPOL Puppet as our fearless leader.
No they didn't. They 'said' they thought he was the Messiah, because they think it gives them brownie points when Race War comes. These people wouldn't have invited him into their houses when he was a community organizer or even a law student. They like him more now that he's a kajillionaire deporting Venezuelans from Martha's Vineyard to mainland Massachusetts.
The best Presidents seem to be able to gather conflicting opinions, collect the "sense" of the country and make decisions. Our current administration is trying to govern by committee - a recipe for disaster.
I've maintained for over a decade that the most dangerous person in Washington is Susan Rice, and I believe she is the Chief String-Puller for that most pathetic and cooperative of marionettes, Alleged President Asterisk.
He’s certainly eloquent and has good stage presence. Smart? Yes, compared to some recent presidents, but that’s a low bar. Wise? Definitely not. By all appearances his favorite person is...himself. We’ve had many mediocre to poor Presidents. History will assign Barry to that cohort.
I have to say that this is the best article I have read on Common Sense, and it goes without saying: that's a high bar. The clear documentation of Twitter's dishonesty, dating back to its very beginning, is breathtaking - and given Twitter's outsized influence on American culture and politics, the value of exposing an all-pervasive but untrustworthy social platform cannot be overstated. Frankly, I've been a little puzzled by this fascist administration/technocrat/Hollywood cabal's near-complete meltdown over Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, but thanks to your article I see the important role that it has played in their evil collusion to bring about The Great Reset. The "problem" with Musk is that he is nearly uncontrollable, and worse - bright and popular.
Once again, Substack and Common Sense prove their worth. Thank you both. We have a great opportunity - maybe our last - on this coming Election Day to begin the reversal of this attempted world-wide coup, and to do it without gunfire (although they have already put the gears in motion for mass starvation, itself a form of murder). If there were ever a time that Your Vote Counts, it's now. We must not fail.
I have even more respect for Musk now than before. I didn't understand how much Twitter contributed to the devolution of media, and the divisiveness of our society, and for him to singlehandedly risk so much of his wealth, and endure the attacks on his reputation, in order to attempt to reverse it is worthy of National Hero status.
I mean that sincerely.
Of course the deep state is busily trying to retrieve it’s disinformation megaphone. Democrat senator Chris Murphy has called on the federal government to investigate “national security concerns” raised by Saudi Arabia’s role in financing his twitter takeover, saying “we should be concerned that the Saudi’s, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting US politics”. The irony is precious, and no doubt lost on the dimwitted senator from Connecticut.
He really is a boob.
He's so much more than a boob. He's a dangerous ideologue who's going to get us all killed. If he doesn't succeed in that, he'll die in office 40 years from now, since CT is a Blue No Matter What state. CT's GOP doesn't know how to read a room and provide suitable challengers. Same applies to that nitwit Blumie.
All of CT's potential Republicans "live" 183 days a year in Florida.
LOL. No kidding. I think you're onto something there.
Yeah. While we beg the Saudis for oil. We elect the dumbest politicians. I’m convinced these dolts fail up. But it also illustrates their hubris and their monopoly on info that they believe we’ll fall for that.
The world is run by C students. Smart people don't care as much what others think about them. Remember high school? The smartest kids in the class had no shot at becoming student body president. Why do you think people like Biden, Fetterman, Herschel Walker, AOC can even believe they can win elections?
This resonates. For years now, I have had this subtle sense that we are back in high school and the "cool kids" are running the show. All while the brilliant dorks are patiently plotting the ultimate "revenge of the nerds." Human nature does not change.
Murphy and Blumenthal are both garbage.
The only people that repressed political speech was Twitter itself. The perpetrators of speech suppression have now been kicked to the curb!
And yet TikTok, wholly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party, continues to collect data one millions world wide with no questions asked. I guess Hunter will get a cut of the profits, which makes it okay.
I thought that part of the deal to buy Twitter was a buyout of stockholders and to then take it private. If so then the Saudi shares is a nonissue.
It's a non issue to the extent that they have nowhere near voting control. Alwaleed bin Talal simply swapped his public stake for private - and it remains tiny. Still, CFIUS can be instructed by the administration to examine the deal at any time.
I'd be curious to understand the Saudi role if you wouldn't mind tossing a link on here.
I quit paying attention to the process for a while and lost track of how he cobbled together his financing.
Did Peter Thiel stay in it?
The Saudis have owned a big chunk of Twitter since 2014. Suddenly the Left is worried about it.
Only because they have now openly disrespected Joe Biden for all the world to see.
Does it matter? Jim provided all of us with a fantastic description of Elon, we don’t need to know how or why, we need to thank him and pray to God he can rid our world of the trash that we are currently swimming in.
The link below is informative. No mention of Thiel.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2022/10/28/how-elon-musk-financed-his-twitter-takeover
Thanks for the link. Silly me. I had not calculated the extent of Arab involvement. Musk has earned a place in the Capital's display of heroes.
Staggering to contemplate what the cost of simply putting that deal together was.
Speaking of respect for Musk, here's a video of yesterday's Falcon rocket launch. If you don't want to watch the whole thing, skip to the 8 minute mark for the landings...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vqAyFJ9KYs
Why I love the guy. That was a sci-fi promise of our youth.
He needs to get to work on the whole flying car thing.
Yes, another unfulfilled promise of our childhood sci-fi world:-)
Yeah, not easy being a Boomer.
I’d settle for a jetpack even.
Amazing.
He surrounds himself with extraordinary people and utilizes their skills to facilitate extraordinary things. I'm not an advicate of solar and wind, but the fact that Elon is, makes me uncomfortable with my position. I tend to think he's only in it for the government subsidies, but perhaps I'm wrong.
What! You could be wrong? You are open to evidence? You get nervous when someone smarter than yourself disagrees with you? Throw this man out of church!
Thank you.
I'm very uncomfortable with opinions I hold when they disagree with people I respect. I hate cognitive dissonance and am always seeking to eliminate it. Green energy is one.
COVID was very difficult as many of my friends and aquaintences wrote me off because I couldn't be delicate about my opinions regarding the massive harm we were doing to our society with the gross overreaction to the pandemic, and the hystrionics of Fauci et al. This article explains why much of it happened, and what dissenters are up against.
Jon I feel you, for people like us that just wanted a discussion, a conversation, a nuanced perspective, admitting we don’t know everything but let’s figure it out together. To have that attitude be labeled as dangerous, shamed, cut off, etc. We’ve been living through some darkness both personally and on the global scale. Hopefully it won’t be for nothing
Applause, the attitudes we were raised on are so rare and lovely to see.
Seems to me that perhaps the most important goal of education should be to teach people to admit that they don't know everything and that sometimes they are wrong.
Jon--uncomfortable w the green energy thing? You should be. I am not pro mining but this link sheds light on the FACTS TODAY regarding copper mining - like it or not. I have a real problem with these folks whooping up solar and wind, and electric vehicles with no concept of what it will take to make those happen on a world scale. And while they drive their EV to protest opening new mines..... https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1584306032653717505.html
You aren’t wrong. No one is perfect.
Thank you I watched the whole launch it was fantastic!
I agree with you. I am giving Musk the benefit of the doubt, but I must caution everyone that I have always been naively optimistic. Facebook is so sinister that it is asking me to publicize my cluelessness by sharing my numerous predictions that Trump would win in 2020.
You weren't wrong in that if the 2020 election had been conducted the same as the 2016 election, without media censorship, abruptly changing state election laws, less the tech interference in certain key precincts, and the avoidance of covering theHunter laptop, Trump would be President today.
Yip Jon we definitely would not be in the state we’re in today. As President Trump has told us since the Covid strike MSM and SM are the “enemy of the people” this article tells it all
and if my aunt had balls she’d be my uncle
-----------------------------
Ironically, that's a plank in the current Dem platform.
Please don't feed the troll!
I think Trump would have lost anyway, but that’s damn funny
Pretty sure it’s the other way around
Off Topic. Another Democrat triumph:
https://spectatorworld.com/topic/union-station-joe-biden-homeless-drugs-crime-speech/
Anyone who votes for the Dem/Commie party needs to have their heads examined. They are destroying this country and the article above proves it. The entire West Coast is going down the drain just like Union Station.
So Uncle Joe cleared a public space for a photo op?
I thought that was a bad thing...or is that so 2020 of me?
It might have been bad if he carried a Bible. Or maybe it is okay. After all he is a good Catholic...
I listened to Walter Kirn talk and Matt Taibbi on their podcast, and also was impressed with their honesty and candor. Signed up. As a conservative I am eager to listen to rational people on the left. We do agree on some things, not everything, but that’s OK. I wonder if people on the left would seek out, eg, Ben Shapiro (ok, he talks too fast), or Dennis Prager to hear their perspectives.
I look at it the same way. I try to be independent, but lean right. I enjoy listening to rational voices on rhe left.
In my view, if you agree with someone on everything, that leads to what we see in today's leftists.
Matt, Jimmy Dore, Glen Greenwald, and Bari are all rational people that I know I can get along with.
Sasha Stone is the rookie of the year. She's putting out amazing stuff, and pops up on Matt and other Substackers occasionally to comment.
Josh, wouldn’t it also hold true that “if you agree with someone on everything, that leads to what we see in today’s…” right-wingers as well? If all your news and information comes from Ingram/Hannity/Carlson, etc. wouldn’t that define that person’s political views as not their own? I too enjoy listening to rational voices on all sides of an issue or discussion.
At least every other week I record all of the Sunday talk shows and watch them. I FF through many topics, and the commercials, so it only talkes about 2 hours. I do this just to see the various angles that the MSM is putting on topics. The only conservative show is Media Matters.
Seriously, the left is bereft of rational positions on pretty much every current topis, Abortion and the Ukraine aside,
They're, imho, largely on the wrong side of everything, And once they lost the Moms, who finally divoreced emotion from logic, and realized that between school closures and indoctrination, their children were in danger, they were in trouble. Add to that that Hispanics aren't motivated by the same welfare state, vote buying tactics that the Dems previously employed for minorities, and we're seeing a seismic change in voting patterns.
Then, having Joe and Kamala as the faces of the party is simply embarassing.
I had hoped that those on the left would seek out voices on the right to see where there is common ground. Unfortunately what I found was that many on the left feel that they correct in their thinking and ideology, and therefore on the right side of history. So many don't feel the need to even briefly listen to a conservative opinion or thought.
In other words...When you truly believe that you're right and everyone who doesn't think exactly like you is wrong, why bother listening to an opposing view?
I have mostly liberal friends and family and more or less define myself the same way, or did, until the past few years. I have to agree with your assessment regarding the closed-minded monoculture in which my liberal friends reside. They are spectacularly incurious, unshakeable in their belief that there is one correct worldview (theirs), and so triggered by their media’s talking points that they have meltdowns if the name of one of their ideological enemies is spoken. (For a giggle, I like to mention Tucker Carlson sometimes just to see what happens.)
Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real affliction, and it’s scary to see very smart, well-meaning people driven mad by it.
From personal observation, my theory is that these are particularly fear-based people who were traumatized by the triple whammy of Trump, Covid and their media. They’re addicted to their face masks. The sight of a MAGA hat makes them hyperventilate. I’m not exaggerating. It’s weird.
🤣🤣🤣 it’s like a disease, wonder what they going to do 9th November, probably going into solitary confinement when the red tsunami hits them.
Probably protesting a stolen election. Mostly peacefully.
I am terrified of either side "winning" this election. If the Democrats win, we will be under one-party fascist rule for the foreseeable future. If the Republicans win, the summer of 2020 will look like a mild block party.
Many stolen elections
We can only hope...
Many of us do. I'm center-left but read several sources on the right. What frightens me, though, is how much both sides tear down the ability of the other to govern. When you tell people in TV ads--24/7--that the people who want to govern them are evil and bad then you get a public that thinks everything is evil and bad.
My Congresswoman is a Democrat and her office has been very helpful to me on some matters dealing with a passport. The mayor of my town is a Republican and has also been very helpful to me on some matters dealing with my home. Yet, to listen to the ads, they're both horrible monsters out to destroy America.
I am center right at this point. I agree.
When you demonize people, you get worse than that. The latest being a hammer attack on an 82 year old man, then scumbags like Donald Trump Jr. joking about it and smearing the man. It keeps getting worse and worse, and it has to stop.
Do you really think that the drug-addled moron who attacked Pelosi ever watches cable news? Is logged on Twitter? or Truth Social?
These people can't take the time to take their pants off to defecate, and yet the narrative is that they are taking instructions from GOP spokespeople on who to attack, and when?
The only thing this idiot DePape thought he knew is that crime goes unpunished in San Francisco. Little did he realize that some animals on the farm are more equal than others.
And he was an illegal immigrant.
Do you have the same concern for Senator Paul? Congressman Scalia? Justice Kavanaugh?
All of whom were either assaulted and injured, shot and nearly killed, or stalked with the intention that they and their family are murdered.
If everyone is so worried about Paul Pelosi, why is he being left alone in a mansion with no security and left to drive himself drunk around the Napa Valley? (Where he was in a crash as a teen that killed his brother.)
There is no one in US politics more demonized that Donald Trump, he is the arch-villain in the leftist cult religion, the Emmanuel Goldstein of their Two Minutes Hate.
The dude in Pelosi's attack is an illegal from Canada, former hemp bracelet maker that was married to a nudist (presently imprisoned for pedophilia) in Berkeley.
A grab them by the pussy, mock the handicapped, lying traitor is "demonized"? And "the dude in Pelosi's attack" quotes Don the Con all over his social media? Fake news, right?
It would be nice to see a politician who can campaign without a backhoe to dig themselves into a gutter.
I agree. The Hole Rule - when you find yourself in a hole, quit digging - is a biggie at my house.
Scott D, who do you read? Though I am conservative, I am often embarrassed about how prominent conservative commentators present their views. They often seem unaware of powerful supporting arguments, and instead revert to talking points. Again, I myself am conservative.
Agree totally!
Ben Shapiro is a genius! The left doesn't stand a chance against him.
I signed up and pay for daily wire and common sense. These people are very smart. I don’t care if they are left or right, even though my views lean right. I will surely listen to both sides.
Yes,heis,but as the guy abovesaid,hetalkstoofast.
He talks fast because he has a lot to say.
Actually, he talks that fast to keep folks from interrupting!
You can listen to him at 0.8 speed! It's very helpful
I said this above, but just to be the contrarian, I will repeat. He speaks at the perfect speed.
Ben and Matt are colleagues. Ben interviewed Matt on his Sunday Special, Ep. 127, back in June of this year. Matt is a liberal person, but he is generously open-minded and seeks out all kinds of people. His beat as a journalist includes media and political corruption, and he takes particular delight in making fun of hypocrisy and garden-variety stupidity on the liberal side, because that would be more his team, if he had a team. His weekly news unpacking episodes with Walter Kirn are a highlight of my week.
Beeswax, I keep checking my email on Fridays so that I can delight myself by listening to the wonderful weekly duo.
Being a (moderate) leftie on this Substack, I'd say Ben Shapiro has some interesting/worthwhile things to say, but Dennis Prager not so much.
That surprises me. I haven't heard Prager for a while, but a few years ago, I listened to him 2-3 times a week, and found that he was usually pretty thought provoking. But not always, of course! No one gets it right all the time.
I like Dennis but I find him redundant and over-preoccupied with the transgender thing. I think it's nuts and would never "transition" my kid, but there are lots of other issues besides that right now that concern and personally affect me more. He can be good when he freshens and mixes up his topics, but sometimes listening to his droning voice go on about "men give birth" I just turn it off. And again, I think that concept is nuts.
This little thread seems to be “our people.” I too lean conservative, but appreciate thoughtful, reasonable, liberals. Apart from Prager, do we have anyone from our perspective to recommend to the potentially open liberals? I am conservative, but sometimes I’m embarrassed by people like Levin, or Savage. Sometimes even Hannity falls back on talking points, and doesn’t seem to think deeply. Limbaugh, for all of his controversy, and occasional unserious-ness, knew how to think.
Although a Brit, Douglas Murray is excellent.
Agree on Savage, Levin and Hannity. It is painful listening to them. Murray is lovely to the ears.
I often agree with Levin but he needs to stop shouting and be less angry. Hannity is more likable but he's extremely repetitive and redundant, showing the same clips of Maxine Waters, Schumer et al over and over. Please get new material.
I didn't realize Murray was a regular commentator. I've read his two latest books, and certainly appreciated them.
I have heard 2 interviews with Douglas Murray, and yes, he does have that excellent Oxford accent.
I'm so glad you thought of Murray! I think he's brilliant, and I love having the perspective of a Brit. If you haven't read it, The Madness of Crowds is excellent; it was published in 2019 but foretells all the things that went on in 2020. I haven't read his new one though.
I have a number of suggestions for you, so many in fact, that I'll just give you their names with not much detail, so you'll have some homework to do, if you don't mind. I'm focusing here mainly on the work being done by Black conservatives, who are essentially ignored by the mainstream media. And yet they prevail!
Black conservatives share a disdain for BLM-style critical theory and eschew the victim mentality that is so popular on that side. They tend to be entrepreneurial and fiercely anti-communist. Many have deep backgrounds in the civil rights movement and others are up and coming. Politically, they run the gamut from very conservative (like Larry Elder and Candace Owens, neither of whom would appeal very much to liberals) to liberal but not woke (like linguistics professor and author, John McWhorter, and podcast host and musician, Coleman Hughes, two brilliant people). McWhorter does twice-monthly conversations with Glenn Loury, professor of economics at Brown University, which are outstanding, and Prof. Loury also interviews intellectuals and professors with whom he's established close relationships over a long career.
Others channel their conservative values in concrete directions: charter schools (Ian Rowe) and community organizing (Robert L. Woodson's Woodson Center). There's the organization Braver Angels, and its founder, John Wood, Jr. And I must mention Shelby Steele, award-winning author of many books, and, with his son Eli, a documentarian. Their film, "What Killed Michael Brown?" can be viewed on Amazon and is well worth whatever they're charging for it these days. Then there's Wilfred Reilly, professor of political science, who wrote the book "Hate Crime Hoax," and Erec Smith, professor of rhetoric and co-founder of the website "Free Black Thought." Also check out the remarkable Chloe Valdary, who invented an alternative to diversity, equity and inclusion brainwashing trainings through her organization, "The Theory of Enchantment."
I'd also suggest that you seek out heterodox thinkers of any race, rather than conservatives per se. Many exiles from the left exist in this space; I'd consider myself one of those. Get on the mailing list of the Australian journal, Quillette. Even if you don't subscribe, you'll have access to a range of intellectually stimulating and eclectic writings across the political spectrum that eschew the far right or far left. In the heterodox category I'd place Konstantin Kisin, a British-Jewish immigrant from Russia who co-hosts the Triggernometry podcast. See his new book, "An Immigrant's Love Letter to the West." And I concur with the suggestion to check out Douglas Murray.
This list is far from exhaustive and I apologize to all the wonderful people I've neglected to mention here.
I just listened to a clip of a podcast of “the two black guys” Loury and McWhorter, where Loury rips Ibram X Kendi a new one. Lots of words I won’t repeat, but Loury concludes Kendi is not worthy to carry his book bag. LOL!
I first noticed Coleman Hughes when he was a kid at Columbia. His writing was remarkable and only 22 yr old. Knew he would go far.
Quillette can be interesting, at times.
Two others I follow— Husband/wife team of evolutionary biologists, Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, Dark horse podcast. They have been fearless and unapologetic exposing the covid fake science.
Bret and Heather got me through the pandemic. They started talking about the lab-leak hypothesis in APRIL 2020! with gain-of-function research and off-label uses of patented medications to treat the virus not far behind. Wow.
Thanks Beeswax. I have read books by Steele, Reilly, McWhorter, Murray, and also Thomas Sowell, and I have heard Glen Loury's podcast. I'm definitely a consumer of heterodox writing, but I have been mostly consuming books, rather than podcasts or essays. Also, you do mention a few names new to me, and I thank you for that.
Any thoughts on a specific podcast or show (so few people read books nowadays; as an author, that kills me!)that I can recommend to a liberal who is just beginning to realize maybe not all is well in paradise? Other than CS of course, that goes without saying.
Tom, one quick amendment to the information I gave you on Nov. 3. I'm rescinding my recommendation of "The Fifth Column" podcast. It's very entertaining and informative, but it doesn't really fit your criterion of something that a liberal person might listen to, learn something from and enjoy. Those guys are pretty raucous and they don't mince words.
Instead, I'd suggest the Clifton Duncan Podcast, which I just discovered. His range of guests is impressive. He defines himself as non-woke but not on the right, more-or-less heterodox, I assume.
Dave Rubin also wrote a book, Why I Left the Left, which other disillusioned liberals may be able to relate to.
Hi Tom, You're way ahead of me. I can't believe that I forgot Thomas Sowell!
In terms of podcasts, I recommend Coleman Hughes' "Conversations with Coleman," which is eclectic and not always focused on politics, so one can choose to listen based on the subject matter. I sometimes enjoy the podcast Fifth Column, with host Kmele Foster and two other right-leaning guys. Foster does investigative journalism and podcasts for Bari Weiss, and occasionally appears as a commentator on Fox. Bari's podcast, Honestly, is very good. I also recommend the podcast "So To Speak: The Free Speech Podcast," which discusses cases or issues in the news from the perspective of prior precedents and current litigation. The guests are First Amendment attorneys who specialize in these types of cases. This podcast leans neither right or left, which is appropriate.
In terms of books, I can recommend a few, although I admit that I don't read as much as I used to because my eyesight is lousy and I find it easier to listen. Thomas Chatterton Williams has written several interesting books from the perspective of a mixed-race man who believes that "race" is a spurious identity category that should become obsolete.
A socialist friend gave me an excellent book from a left-wing perspective on the phenomenon of left-wing intolerance and cancel culture: "Cancel This Book - The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture," by labor and human rights attorney Dan Kovalik. Kovalik is one of those rare leftists who will critique his own side.
Vivek Ramaswamy is a successful entrepreneur and renaissance man. His book "Woke Inc." is a tour de force. He has just released a new book which I look forward to reading, "Nation of Victims: Identity Politics, the Death of Merit, and the Path Back to Excellence." As a die-hard capitalist, Ramaswamy will challenge your liberal friends, but his analysis of how big business has been corrupted by woke politics is hard to refute and very compelling.
Lastly I'd like to put in a plug for Portland-based documentary filmmaker Travis Brown, whose Locals community I'm a member of. Brown's project, The Woke Reformation/The Signal Productions, is ongoing. You'll find him on YouTube. He's done great interviews with right and left leaning intellectuals who are not woke, e.g., Niall Ferguson, Douglas Murray, Peter Boghossian, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Michael Shermer, Asra Nomani, among others.
There have been leftists on this board but to a man/woman they do nothing but insult and disrupt.
There are a few who manage to keep things civil in spite of disagreeing. But the trolls are all Leftists. I haven't seen even a purported right-wing troll since the guy who claimed to be a far-right Jew (despite occasionally oopsing Leftist ideology) was kicked off.
Dave Rubin. I LOVE him. His Rubin Report can be found on YouTube and Locals.com. He actually founded Locals.com. I can never go too many days without my Dave fix. Yes, I crush on him. (I consider myself one of his straight-woman groupies, lol.) He's a gay man married to another man and is a self-described classic liberal and former Democratic activist who's been red-pilled. After Newsom won the recall election, he moved from California to Florida.
He comes across as a really normal, likable guy, talks in a modulated voice and doesn't yell, he's funny, and he mixes up topics enough so his show doesn't get stale.
Check him out.
Ben Shapiro talks at the perfect speed.
"One definition of “paranoia” is suspecting the truth too early, before your therapist reads it in The Times."
As a Military family living on the "East Side" for many many years, I can't believe how well this quote and Substack was written. Honestly don't want to screw it up with my bad comment writing!!
I am a "Substacker", for now. (Left The Times in 2020, UnHerd is losing its Covid magic...)
Yup, after 20 yrs I have cancelled my $40/mo WSJ subscription. I can use that to subscribe to much better content on substack
I did the same thing--as a lifelong reader of the WSJ, it kills me how their “news”reporting has gotten so biased. Their opinion page has kept its integrity, but I am spending my media dollars (meager though they are) on those who still think that facts are important. Substack is a great outlet.
Ha! I just got this after commenting on Variety's plea for a COVID forgiveness truce:
Your comment on Opinion | Now They Want a Pandemic ‘Amnesty’ violates the community guidelines and has been rejected
publisher's logo
JonSewell Wed 02 Nov 2022 01:07:23 PM
Yeah, and let's agree to disagree on Hitler's whole Final Solution thing.
WSJ used to be a good center-right, sane alternative to the MSM, but started to go the way of the Washington Post beginning in about 2017. After the George Floyd thing, they acted like they were racing to catch the last train to Wokeville. Sad. I still read it for their op-ed page. What made them unique is that they were always first and foremost a business newspaper. Now there's no distinction between them and any other liberal major national paper.
Yeah, it's tempting, but the Op/Ed is still worth it for me. I have to admit though, the moderators are starting to infect the Op/Ed pages too.
As long as they keep Holman Jenkins I’ll keep my subscription
A very wise move NC.
I left the NYT before that when I'd had it with all the "Trans" glorification opinion pieces by "Jennifer" Boylan with zero balancing opinions by, say, Abigail Shrier.
https://www.nytimes.com/column/jennifer-finney-boylan
"Jennifer" is still married to the same woman with whom he had two sons. One of the opinion pieces was about the amazing joy of son Zack following in his footsteps and "transitioning " to "Zaira".
"Jennifer" and "Zaira" are true women, not men in woman face at all, are they! I don't care if such people want to wear dresses and have fake breasts but the rest of society should not be bullied into agreeing with them that they *are* women under the law or in sports, etc.. And we should not preach Radical Gender Dogma in schools with Drag Queens who are about adult entertainment. Being kind to others is one thing, but being soft in the head to the point of harming young people is another. We've been duped.
Agree!
I will repeat an example I have used before—
If an adult 5’6”, 80 lb woman went to the doctor, told him she was fat and wanted to have her small intestine removed so she could lose more weight, should the doctor agree she IS fat, and performs the life altering surgery? Of course not! Yet doctors are doing something comparable to that when they “affirm” that people with ovaries are men and people with penises are women. This is insanity and we as a society have to push back.
Thank you.
Of course, I am a mere person with ovaries who has birthed children a few times - not a mother. These women with penises must know better than I do! :-0
Gender dysphoria is the only psychiatric disorder currently being treated with surgery. I say currently, because psychosis used to be treated with lobotomy. As we all know, that has worked out well.
Exactly.
And, I think the gender dysphoria psychiatric disorder is pretty rare. All these kids/young people have been led to believe they suffer from it because they feel they are weird, they are uncomfortable with puberty, don't have a ton of friends, their interests are "different", whatever. Then, they go down this cult garden path.
I defy anyone who has gone through adolescence to deny they felt awkward, uncomfortable in their body, or wished they were someone else! It doesn't mean the adolescent is unhealthy, quite the opposite. Making the normal maelstrom of adolescence into something that must be medicated or cut out denies the possibility of maturation.
UnHerd is a bit uneven but diamonds remain
The apoplectic response underscores what many of us have long known and the Left has long denied—Twitter is overwhelmingly biased against conservative users, so much so that the platform has become a critical part of the Left’s ecosystem, an activist extension of progressive orthodoxies thanks in large part to its employees.
Twitter’s user base is also overwhelmingly left-wing. According to Pew, 10% of users generate 92% of all tweets, and 7 out of 10 of these users are liberal. Using this data, Brian Riedl, a budget and tax expert, calculated last year that if Twitter were a congressional district, it would have a partisan voter index (PVI) of D+43. Today, that would tie it with Washington D.C., the most liberal district in the country.
https://euphoricrecall.substack.com/p/black-friday
The activist progressive orthodoxies of the employees were the primary reason Musk needed to fire so many of them in order to move forward. And like most Leftist organizations, it turns out that there were about 10 people "managing" for every 1 person actually working.
Fascinating info—thank you!
I was ready to type nearly the same first sentence you did and then saw your post. As of now, I have avoided joining twitter because I was turned off by the limitations of a "sound byte" in written form. Watching the world get manipulated by it was confusing at first but I eventually realized from the reports of ones I knew that it had become a government tool for propaganda.
Now it has been confirmed.
Twitter seems like such a cesspool of a circle jerk, opening it to sunlight could reduce it to a shell of it's former self. I don't know if I ever will join but if Musk follows through with his transparency plans I may to support free speech.
Twitter is definitely an acquired taste. I've gotten the most benefit by being very careful about who I follow; following every person who follows you is not a good approach. Yesterday I even unfollowed someone I agree with politically, but who spends most of their time trading insults with trolls.
100% agree with you--I had exactly the same thought as I was reading this! A superb and exceptionally illuminating piece of important journalism. Mike Solana's (works with Peter Thiel at Founders Fund) piece last night is a worthy companion to Kirn's first class article: https://www.piratewires.com/p/fud/comments
Yes. You could not find this anywhere else.
Or you.
The role government has in all of this is far more troubling to me, twitters failing notwithstanding.
Many on Twitter pointed out that this is a HUGE story--possibly the most important story of the year--but the only response Leftists could muster was complaining that the guy who was instrumental in uncovering it went on Fox News to talk about it.
Agreed. What people forget is that government is power. Period, nothing more. And when they abuse that power, stopping it is top priority. If you want the perfect example, witness yesterday's jailing of the top officials in True The Vote for refusing to reveal their sources.
I was just thinking the same thing.
The EU has made it clear that none of this free speech nonsense will be allowed to cross the pond. Europe will be a free speech no-go zone. Mr musk will have to deal with the EU whether he likes it or not. That will be an interesting fight. Will he engage or give in?
Unlike my Boy Hussein, Elon really IS smarter than ten million people. Watching him work is like watching the Orange Man play 4-dimensional chess with the sad American politicians. If I don't understand what Musk is doing, I just assume it's because he's four moves ahead somewhere up along the z-axis.
EU May have to engage with Elon he is supplying satellite coverage to the Ukraine so far for free so they might have to change their tune regarding Elon Musk and do mega engaging
Jim, I couldn't have responded any better than this. Thanks to the author for opening the window on the shenanigans regularly take placing on Twitter that most of us never knew was happening.
Thank you. So much at stake. So very much.
We've only scratched the surface of the extent to which shadowbanning has manipulated our society.
Getting rid of the fascistic democrats is imperative, but the Republicans are little better. We need a new party. The Patriots party.
I am less than impressed with most of the Republicans, especially those of the Establishment variety. But I have little faith in third parties.
Andrew Yang's Forward Party seems to be economically far Left (he still supports "universal income," as far as I can tell), and moderate only on a few social issues.
I voted for Libertarian presidential candidates from 2004 to 2016, but I'm too pragmatic of a small-L libertarian to support their party on the whole.
I wish Musk would organize a moderate Independent party. He has the clout to succeed at it. But since he isn't eligible to be a POTUS candidate, there isn't much incentive for him to do it.
Yeah, Walter Kirn is great
Watching phony, deranged liberals flip out over Musk's promise not to censor opinions they don't like is, for actual liberals, both a joy and a terror.
It’s concerning to me that we’ll read this article and still ignore the reality of what social media actually is. It’s “Contagious, the Jonah Brenner book, brought to life. Social media was created with fine intentions - but it’s been eminent domained under control of the government with just compensation to the owners in the form of massive ad spending and 0% interest rates for acquisition of competing platforms to create large and infinitely controllable platforms all under common ownership.
No one can save social media - and the faux liberals you mention aren’t real people expressing real ideas - they’re paid employees posting what their job requires of them, the same as any other social media manager at any company.
The issue we face as a society evaluating social media is we still don’t understand what it is …. Musk may change that (a pay to play model is an absolute must - but only a start), but his owning the platform alone changes nothing.
Musk has accomplished a lot of great things - he’s also taken a LOT of government money to produce specifically the things they’ve asked him to produce and how and where they’ve asked him to produce it - so assuming Twitter will be returned to the people is like assuming Marcus Aurelius’ dream was actually going to come true just because he wished it (before he was murdered)
The mask is off. They are saying the quiet part out loud. They're freaking out that they're losing their biased, one-sided echo chamber and control and information and aren't even trying to pretend otherwise.
Exactly and all under the guise of "Free Speech" being no more. God they are all so transparent and frankly just clueless.
In one of the first tweets Musk sent out after he closed the deal on Twitter last week he deleted only hours later.
He self censored.
The Who said it best: 'New Boss, same as the old Boss..'
“Self-censorship” is *completely* morally different than top-down censorship.
Sorry. I disagree. Self censorship on Musk’s part tells me he has no answer to the free speech issues he just bought into at Twitter.
He writes something, then pulls it when it gets the wrong attention. It’s controversial, perhaps embarrassing, or stupid, no matter, he withdraws it. And he’s the owner!
How will he defend your comment when the mob comes after it? He’ll axe it. Will he blame Homeland Security? The Big Censor in the Sky? Thats easy.
Musk is morally ambivalent. No strength of conviction, just looking for a ploy for continued attention from suckers like us.
Which to my mind, the purchase of Twitter was.
He plans on creating a diverse Council to deal with content
https://www.axios.com/2022/10/28/elon-musk-twitter-content-council-trump-ye-tweets
So quite the example he sets for his Council. He cancels his own tweets.
Clearly you don't want to acknowledge his first positive step in creating an unbias content council which is a huge departure from the old Twitter.
Does that mean you're ready to vote for some deplorable conservatives? Because if it doesn't, it's a hollow sentiment.
This will end only when the liberals realize the progressives are more dangerous than the conservatives. I think we're still a ways away from that. Libs have spent too many decades demonizing religious people as homophobic and conservatives as sexist, racist pigs. That kind of hatred requires a lot of cognitive dissonance to overcome. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we're there yet.
Elon is killin' it.
Predicted this catastrophe....and it came to pass.
No company wants their brand on a white nationalists, conspiracy, deranged buffoonery, etc. platform with zero content moderation.
Enjoy that $8.
Enjoy your FrEe SpEEcH!
Kirn's essay validates my decision to subscribe to Common Sense. He eloquently states what I have been convinced is true since before the pandemic, and what has been undeniably proven since it began: we are being censored and cancelled for deviating from any narrative preferred by the left. I know personally of friends and family members that have been placed in Twitter or FB jail for simply liking a post that went against the party line. I have received warnings that I was skirting to close to boundaries that may not be crossed, e.g. any criticism of Anthony Fauci or suggestion of doubt about the value of mandated vaccination for Covid. The same goes for critical race theory and its validity, and the rush to insert diversity, equity, and inclusion in every corner of society. In my own organization, the American College of Surgeons, in which I have been a Fellow for thirty years, I was permanently banned from posting on its online forums for questioning the College's adoption of the premise that it (the College) is systemically racist, that surgeons are all racists, and that the surgery as practiced today is racist. All of this is to be accepted without a shred of evidence. To question this is to be gaslighted and muzzled. Kudos to Kirn and to Common Sense for posting.....well....common sense.
All of the professional organizations have been captured by leftist lunatics. My own bar association if full out woke and deranged. My question is whether the members actually believe this drivel. If not, we should all arise. If so, we are in way more trouble than you or I ever thought.
In my career, and I belonged to many different professional organizations, I observed that the leadership of professional societies was never populated by individuals who accomplished immpressive things, but, like our goverment, was where lower tier performers went to get their impression of 'stature'. Most of what they did was useless, and symbolic. It all seemed to revolve around planning conferences/retreats in which they'd all contribute a boring/cardboard 50 minute talk while the audience pretended to pay attention.
I always sat in the back corner of the room so I could exit within 10 minutes or so.
My guess is some are true believers, some aren't. It's a way to hold onto power without actually doing anything. My professional association -the APA- is the same. You would THINK psychology professionals would be more focused on the individual and resistant to models that throw the word "systemic" in front of something and call it a day but, sadly, they aren't.
So true. Their understanding of "systemic" is on a par with their use of "existential" for the most mundane matters.
Systemic = almost impossible to fix so we’re screwed. Existential= life and death so if you don’t do what I want, we’re all going to die. This language intentionally or not, breeds despair of all kinds of varieties.
You did something folks on left cannot or will not do:define their incendiary terms. And there are many many more
The reason they don't define those terms is because they "literally" don't believe them at all.
Hence the need for Peterson.🤠
Seems to be true. When I was in medical school (50th reunion this coming May), joining the AMA wasn’t even a question; it was a given. SAMA—student AMA—was offered, free, and came with bennies. Sometime in the late 70s-early 80s, it lurched strongly to the left. Doctors generally don’t like being pushed around and being told what to think. I’ve heard that at one point, something shy of 20% of MDs in the US were members. I gave up on it in the 80s when they did several things: advocated against Israel defending itself, advocated against guns, and advocated for candidates like Clinton. Since those days, it’s gone even farther to the left.
JAMA used to be a valid journal. Now you get to read articles about how inequitable medicine has been racially and how people do not have access to “healthcare,” whatever that is. I have yet to find an instance of someone being denied medical care because of means, but perhaps it really does happen. Can’t be common. To look at JAMA, it’s an outright epidemic.
Bottom line is that AMA no longer represents the face of rational medicine. It might be saved, though, by accreting to itself the hearts and minds of the newly graduating wokies. Good luck finding a rational doctor in 15 years.
I was a lifelong Hospital Administrator and couldn't believe when the AMA and AHA threw their weight beging the ACA. Granted, they were blackmailed by threats of what CMS would do to Medicare if they didn't go along, but still.
I am on a FB page for my state's lawyers. My assessment is that many of those are thoroughly indoctrinated. For example during the Covid lockdowns potential clients were looking for relief. Naturally they sought legal advice and I was astonished at the number who went on FB to berate these people. Then after it was obvious that the lockdowns went too far and courts needed to be in person they shrieked, ranted, and raved. Their li-i-i-ives were simply not worth the risk. I was and am embarrassed.
Yeah, a lot of people were exposed during that period.
I was shocked by how little information people processed before making their opinion, and how trusting they were of people who had done nothing to deserve that respect other that occupy a position of power.
It was apparent that Fauci was a mistake in March/April of 2020, and none of the factual data available at that time supported the call for draconian measures that were coming out of the CDC, FDA, NEA and Democrat party. Immeasurable harm was done.
I sincerely hope that the American College of Surgeons will start absorbing the stories of "detransitioners" like Ritchie Herron, Sinead Watson and Helena Kerschner. There is a new generation of individuals who got sucked into the gender ideology cult and rushed to double mastectomies of healthy breasts, removal of male or female genitals and regret the choices. The rest of us are learning not to trust the field of medicine. I know this story well, by ex-husband rushed into this path, now claims to be me, the mother of our children. I literally have the wrongthink of the diagnosing PhD psychologist, Dr. Chrisitine Wheeler (diagnosis in 1 appt.) in a sworn affidativit, submitted in New York State Supreme Court during the divorce.
Ute Heggen, author, In the Curated Woods, True Tales from a Grass Widow (iuniverse, 2022)
Wow—my deepest sympathies to you and your children for this horrific tragedy. It sounds like a surreal nightmare for you and your children to be forcibly dragged through your husband’s madness while his delusions were being facilitated by sinister medical professionals misusing their technical expertise. I’ll read your book.
Thanks! It is available in eBook form as well as soft cover and contains 50 nature photos. I suggest that everyone request copies for their local libraries wherever they take same. Libraries are the trenches, just like schools. For excerpts and links to quality studies calling the entire diagnosis into question:
uteheggengrasswidow.wordpress.com
Thank you Ute! I'll do my best with my local library . . .
How crazy wish you strength going forward!
Good for you Dr. Bosshardt--continue to fight the good fight!
Right with you brother! ACS for thirty years. Thanks for challenging them!!
"One definition of “paranoia” is suspecting the truth too early, before your therapist reads it in The Times. " What a fantastic line, I plan to steal it.
Sadly, the Times may never get there. The Post is much more likely to have it first.
In New York, but not Washington
I shared it with my family immediately, what great writing!
After watching “news” gradually become more and more a report of what is said on Twitter - and knowing how my own large tree of friendship had been severely pruned during the past four years, I was looking forward to the changes Musk would bring. I joined Twitter the day he bought it so I could see for myself what is said and by whom.
Same.
I learned a lot from this article (like I often do from Walter Kirn) and I love the way his mind works. His "turn of phrase" hearkens back to a time when speech was evocative of the emotional underplay. He so often captures what is resonating between my mind and spirit. Thanks Mr. Kirn.
I never went near Twitter…until now. With Musk running things I decided to see what it’s all about. The story I’ve been tracking is the Paul Pelosi incident. I wanted to see what got posted since the media are doing a, not surprisingly, lousy job of figuring out what happened. So many questions, so little curiosity. Such a rush to declare it a right wing attack. So I started posting questions—
We know he lived in Berkeley in some sort of hovel with BLM and LGBTQ posters, had a weird relationship with a woman, had a couple kids, indulged in nudism and drugs…how does this point to right wing? I mean, where are his guns? Next, How did he get to Pelosi’s house? At 2am? Walking? Car? Maybe there’s an accomplice? He had a backpack with zip ties, a hammer and a rope….yet he’s charged with kidnapping? Uh…no car, no gun..a husband who would resist…maybe even live in staff, who knows, but people on Twitter adamantly post that because he said he wanted to kidnap Nancy, he should be charged. Doesn’t matter that she wasn’t there. I think, maybe an insanity plea makes more sense. Next, the security system. Hello? Are we to believe the Pelosis didn’t have one? Video sure would answer a lot of questions. Yet this isn’t discussed? Smells fishy. Next, the whole homosexual thing. Being in their underwear. Please. Men sleep in their underwear at 2am. Depape was a loony nudist. If there is any truth to the underwear thing, jumping to some hook-up explanation is dumb. Lots of that on Twitter. And lots of proclamations of the Pelosi’s victimhood at the hands of evil right wingers who are a threat to democracy. But given the state of SF, can anyone be surprised that a drug addled, homeless, psychotic person broke into a home? Why would anyone assume he has a coherent political thought?
Once Nancy is in the minority, maybe she can turn her focus to the city she has represented for decades, as it declined into chaos and human excrement on the streets.
At least my questions on Twitter haven’t been disappeared.
The median IQ in our nation is 100.
It explains a lot. From driving habits to Twitter posts.
Like clothing sizes have been fiddled with so fat people feel thin: I think you’ll find that ‘100’ used to be ‘80’. A ‘median’ of any collection of items only means the middle number. It changes in actual measurement of anything if the proportion of items above and below it changes. So, the actual level of intelligence represented by ‘100’ now could well mean-and I think it does- that the people who used to represent sub-median values are now more numerous and that makes them the median. We have achieved ‘idiocracy’. Obvious to anyone reading warning labels now, ie “remove pizza from box before eating”, or ‘don’t eat detergent pods’
idiocracy, perfect description.
That was before the pandemic. It's probably about 72 now.
Inflation, temporary as it was evidently, took it back to 78
Hahaha
You can never trust the press to print the truth, e.g. Trump colluded with the Russian and Hunter's laptop was a Russian plant.
But but but.....the 51 former '"intel professionals......."
In a sane nation they'd be afraid to show their faces in public and would be beaten regularly.
One of them was interviewed by Tucker Carlson. His comments were galling (basically it is our fault for believing the disinformation in the letter) and his body language was telling.
I can't remember when I joined Twitter, but I have mostly ignored it for years. But when Elon Musk announced his intentions last spring, I decided to go back. I was less and less comfortable posting political material on Facebook, even though I limited the reach of those posts to a smaller and smaller circle. Twitter under Musk seemed like the perfect outlet for my information-sharing frustrations.
It has been that. Although it may not be a good thing for my stress level and my time use.
I just joined twitter, too. Been watching the Pelosi story and also the overwhelmingly negative response to Emily Oster's article in The Atlantic requesting 'pandemic amnesty.' That has made me happy.
I have not joined yet. From.my reading the bots and trolls are still active. I think that is probably why Musk gave control to the Tesla coders. For example it was reported that there was an increase in the use of a particular racist slur after Musk' takeover. Wich drew the ire of no less a personage than LeBron James (that is sarcasm). Twitter was able to immediately respond that there were about 25,000 such uses from 300 accounts (figures are from memory). I am impressed. But being a natural skeptic I am wary of going from the frying pan into the fire.
It was quite splendid how rapidly the new coders were able to identify the (foreign) bots responsible and shut them down. Getting rid of all the bots should be one of the top priorities (right after taking down the sharers of child porn).
The use of the n word slur is a flip of the bird at the idpol pearl clutchers deployed by obnoxious non conformist kids of all ages. It's a gesture of censorship defiance and solidarity in free speech (and a dash of cultural appropriation, LOL). It's usage is not exclusive to or indicative of hard core racism from what I've seen. I fully expect its usage on Twitter will settle down shortly, if it hasn't already. The kids will have had their bird flipping fun and will go back to their usual hangouts.
Interestingly, my only personal observation of the word's use was by black people (finally able to openly talk about it) and Leftists claiming that all the right-wing "racists" were going to start using it on the regular. And black conservatives did not hesitate to point out that white Leftists use slurs on the regular to describe black conservatives.
It is a word thst is universally accepted as racist and I chose to use slur to describe it. I do take your point that "slur" is abused as is "racist" and "racism" to the point where the meaning is diluted. And my larger point illustrated your point - it was done by bots and trolls to inflame readers.
Obviously San Francisco is a hot bed of right wing facism
Or is it semi facism and Ultra MAGA? I get confused
Your questions you have asked make very valid points and will be on Twitter for a while will probably gather a few ticks. The only reason it will remain is because Elon has control otherwise it would never reached its current status
Great, just great. For his next salvo, could Mr. Kirn expose the "fact check" business, in which we are told, time after time after time, what the apparatchiks of the deep state expect us to believe?
Then he could take a whack at the Covid-era headline, "What You Need to Know," which is seen regularly in news media whose members are illiterate in math and science -- and, not infrequently, in basic grammar.
I have a journalism degree. I’m now 62 years old. The 45 years between my youthful vision of the craft and today may as well be 10,000 millennia.
I think the chasm between when you entered the field and where it is today can be blamed on the idea that many of your colleagues think they are smarter than their readers & viewers. When you have a group of journalists who look down on the very people who read or view their content, it becomes okay, even an imperative to set the "Correct & proper" agenda. To properly educate the consumer.
Generally, I think journalism is where it is today because of the idea that many (not all) journalists feel they are the smartest people in the room.
I think you may be right about the current state of what passes for journalism. But I have come to understand (in part due to a fellow CSer, Shane) that it is a result of the death of newspaper journalism. In essence for most of the 1900s newspapers were the source of news. People paid for papers so papers could afford writers. People bought more papers so papers could afford staff. People bought more papers so powerful editors arose in the newspapers staff. Those editors created what I know as journalistic integrity and standards. Then the internet came along. People quit buying papers. The system collapsed and the idea of journalistic accountability is non-existent at this time.
Lynne, I would add when the newspapers were replaced by the Internet, the economics changed dramatically when you contrast the two. A newspaper journalist had time to check the facts, do some research, question the players, etc. and then if worthy, the editors would edit and run the story and people would buy the newspaper. Once we moved to a click based economy, and 24/7 instant news cycles, it put the economic survival of “news” outlets in the “get it out there first and get the clicks” mode rather than “get it out there right even if we will not survive mode.”
Exactly. Thanks for filling out the facts.
There are still "powerful editors" in other (more "modern") media (TV, radio, Twitter, Insta, etc.). The problem is they were all educated in the "modern" version of the U.S. university/journalism school. THAT'S the problem.
Is it actually the education that makes them this way? Or a different kind of student drawn to the field?
Both, I suspect. When the Leftward shift began, it was mostly that education "radicalized" journalism students. But the further Left the Media gets, the more students are attracted to it because it allows them a bully pulpit for their already-existing activism.
"What you need to know"... That expression really rankles me. 90% of what follows that expression now invariably turns out to be false and 50% of it is manipulative propaganda (largely redundant, I know).
I am the judge of what I need to know.
I keep seeing something in my yahoo news feed called Explainer. Yeah, sure it does.
Why do you trust Yahoo to curate what news you see there?
I don't. I have a yahoo email and I get a feed there, althoughaybe feed is the wrong word. I like a lot of sources so I read it sometimes. The Explainer thing cracks me up.
"Explainer" and "What you need to know about" are for Millenials and Z's, apparently they like to be spoon fed.
Thanks for the info.
Similar to mansplaining
That means a man having to explain something to womxn
I believe it's been pretty much discarded. WaPo still employs it, but it's pretty much a joke.
This is a good first look behind the curtain, but I would like to see Bari dig deeper into the disturbing revelation that the social media companies gave the government their own private backdoor for requesting the suppression of information.
Such a level of incest between companies, media, and government is the very hallmark of totalitarianism.
It is the actual definition of fascism.
It is. And yet the Left doesn't have a problem with it.
'cause it ain't MegaMagaFascism, which is like, totally, literally, different.
It’s not Ultra MAGA anymore?
(Updates notes)
‘One definition of “paranoia” is suspecting the truth too early’
Very true. People are often called conspiracy theorists for being right ahead of their time.
You can listen to Rush Limbaugh shows from the 90s, and his observations are relevant and insightful to this day.
I never had a Twitter account and I decided to make one when I heard that Musk bought it. It amazes me that people waste their time with it.
I wish I could remember who said it, but I always liked this quote: "I'm a serious person. I do not 'tweet'."
Roger Ebert maybe?
Good quote.
In my opinion, Twitter is like cigarettes: much talked about, widely used, but I don’t see what all the fuss is about.
Can anyone name a tolerant open society or country that sought to control the media,communication and thought? Conversely, a totalitarian society that did not?
In my time two books have stood out. The first, The Micro Millenium, was a glimpse into the future of computers and tech, and if I'd paid it heed, I would be a very rich man today.
The second, Killing Time, by the brilliant Caleb Carr, predicted just the sort of chilling manipulation of information that is occurring today with our technocrat overseers and our gangster government. It was chilling then but not so much as now because we weren't wedded to tech when the book was penned in the way we are now.
A third book, the over used but still relevant 1984, caught the mindset correctly but couldn't begin to conceive of the ubiquity of tech and the evil of its masters. Could you imagine the cackles of delight if Stalin and Beria had access to the tech of today? Not much better knowing it's in the hands of Merrick Garland, Zuckerberg and Google. So sad that we had to rely on the fluke of luck that Musk would be a billionaire. A free and independent people would never have stood for censorship like this.
“A free and independent people would never have stood for censorship like this.”
Matt Walsh made the point yesterday that the 2 1/2 year COVID “interlude” of (attempted) government and media mind control ALMOST worked. To his mind, the fact that 99% of Americans have rapidly discarded all trappings of the pandemic indicates TPTB were able to temporarily shift our behavior (it turns out wrongly in many cases), but were unable to fundamentally change the way we THINK. IOW, we escaped just in time! Go Elon!
Orwell was a prophet.
Sadly.
But now our children are denied his genius and instead fed the brainless poison of Howie Zinn and Ibram X. (Hank Rogers by any other name) Kendi.
I saw a YouTube video of the brilliant and eloquent Glenn Loury (he's got his own channel) in a discussion with the equally brilliant John McWhorter. He called Ibram X a shallow half wit (in much more colorful language). It was great....
That book was atrocious.
More and more people are homeschooling.
Folx seems to think it’s an instruction manual
As an aside, I was watching a movie on Amazon, Mr. Jones, and Orwell is a character. Older movie, 2019, but I just found it and enjoyed it.
A great movie. NYT a star villain.🤠
Xi Jinping has access to that tech, with predictable results.
I’ve been watching my liberal friends melt down over the Twitter takeover. One posted a screenshot of his iPhone screen with a gap where the twitter app was. Another posted, in complete seriousness, “you all realize Musk is a Bond villain right”. It amuses me to no end, how worried they are about having to face opposing views. And let’s not forget that yesterday the ACLU tweeted that they were concerned about the government’s role in controlling content on social media. Perhaps the times are changing.
The ACLU is a bunch of left wing hacks. It is shocking they even care about the government's role in censorship because lately they appear to me to be an arm of that entire complex.
The comments on their tweet took notice of the ACLU's more recent history. Some suggested the account must have been hacked.
I can't help thinking it's a self-serving pivot. People on Twitter are deeply angry about these revelations. An Atlantic piece on Covid Amnesty--essentially a plea for everyone to forgive and forget the lockdowns that destroyed small businesses and separated families from their dying loved ones, the vaccine mandates that deprived people of their jobs, and the school closures that have harmed children--not only got ratioed radically, it set off an upswelling of anger toward those who were responsible for all that.
Well, when you no longer control the platform used to control the narrative, therefore no longer having the protection of said platform...Your words now have to stand on their own. And when they illicit negative feedback, the author of the words has to actually defend them.
Which to me is delicious irony. Because since Twitter became politicized, those on the left and/or those with "correct thoughts and opinions" were very quick to tell conservatives that they didn't have a right not to have their ideas challenged.
We'll have to see how THAT goes when the shoe is on the other foot.
The rage of the Leftists on the platform is a delicious irony. When Musk proposed a monthly fee for blue-checks, millionaire (or is it billionaire?) Steven King bitched about it and was roundly called out for his elitism.
Yes...nothing like reminding the electorate a week before the election of all of your diabolical failings. Thanks Atlantic!
Many of the best takes on the article pointed out that it was basically a desperate plea for moms to vote Democrat in spite of those failings.
Thinking it ain’t gonna help, when I see the DNC funneling campaign monies into California, NY, Oregon, etc it ain’t a good sign
The ACLU are concerned now b/c they see that conservatives will be taking charge and their socialist friends will be unable to help.
They are seriously compromised.
Absolutely. The replies to the tweet are quite amusing - mostly consisting of people asking if they were hacked.
A side effect of being protected from the vigorous honest debate is intellectual atrophy, an overreliance on Alinsky parlor tricks.
Hence, the lineup of today's intellectually and morally bankrupt carnival barkers.
For a laugh, consider one of the worst is now in some teaching capacity at Harvard; Brian Stelter.
I believe their concern was the the government's role in controlling content on social media isn't big enough.
"Emerging from the dimness of Plato’s Cave into the dazzle of daytime may take a while—we grew sleepier than perhaps we even knew. I say let the wild rumpus begin." Applause.
Wild rumpus it was, and it was fun, bracing at times, but most everyone could speak their mind.
During the rise of BLM, I was asked by a member; do you believe Black Lives Matter? I responded yes, I do, and it’s covered under “all” lives matter. Not good enough. This person/bot insists I say the words “only Black Lives Matter,”
I refused and being a note taker, I fired back in rapid succession victims of black-on-black violence, asking, “what about this life, did it matter?”
Turns out, no, they didn’t. The narrative was set, and just a few years later, the instigators of that bullshi% are real estate investors using the contributions of rubes to enrich themselves!
Having lived in Baltimore City I can attest to this. Currently there are 282 murders in the city, and not a BLM protest to be seen. No BLM statements about how much Black Lives Matter. Nothing.
So you are correct, some Black Lives Matter, while most others don't.
That’s the problem, grifters of all races grifting their own.
I really thought Rev Al and the Jackson’s would push back a bit on BLM, cutting into their decades-old grift and all
The Founding Fathers knew what they were about when they made Freedom of Speech the First Amendment.
The truth is coming out. It can only be suppressed for so long.
Let us hope the new Congress will investigate the (fascistic) collusion between government and Big Tech and draft legislation to end it. These government agencies that have been shown to be hopelessly corrupt need to be broken up. They have become true enemies of the people. As an example, Homeland Security is aiding and abetting homeland insecurity by attempting to control speech and by encouraging massive waves of illegal migrants into the country. The Dept of Justice is anything but. We know there are now two different standards of justice: one for Trump supporters, and one for Democrats. The FBI has become a horror and a joke.
They won't investigate. Republicans have zero balls and zero backbone. They have never have. I would love for them to do it but they won't. It pisses me off. The problem also is the Democrats are embedded in the DOJ and the FBI
The Republicans who have been in office are afraid of the administrative state. Many of them are as complicit as Democrats.
Totally agree. As long as we continue to support and believe in the duopoly, nothing will change. Remember, it was republicans who ushered in the DHS and its vast expansion of the security state. Ive been telling people this for a while now but the current version of the DNC and left politics looks strikingly similar to George W Bush's GOP with a couple of small superficial differences. Replace the religious dogma of the "moral majority" with today's dogma of "wokeness" and the Iraq war with Ukraine and everything else is the exact same. In many cases, its literally the same people on TV making the same arguments. They're just on CNN instead of Fox this time. Republicans have been pulled into a position of seeming moderate and defending individual liberty but thats only because the left has control of the levers of power which the right seeks to retake. It has nothing to do with values. If/when they are back in control (and that would be of more than just congress bc the left would still control the media, both old and new), they'll do the exact same things. They'll just sell it in different wrapping.
Agree. Give me term limits, stricter rules around campaign money and short election cycles. A single or at least non-consecutive 6 year presidential term wouldn’t hurt either.
Too many of them feed at the same trough.
I would agree. Then again 100% of any set is usually "too many"
They don't any need new legislation. All that needs to happen is the DOJ find, indict, and convict the perpetrators. Simple, but not easy.
This DOJ with Merrick Garland in charge? Yeah, sure.
I don't feel better. I believe the truth can be suppressed forever, unfortunately.
No, it can't be. It can be suppressed for 75 years more (JFK assassination), or 66 years more (Marc Rich), or 6 years (Muller's investigation; government collusion with Big Tech and the MSM). But it can't be suppressed forever.
All true.
Exceptional. It's the articles and introduction to authors like this that confirm my decision to subscribe to Common Sense.
This insight alone is critically important:
"...the period when the American establishment sought to control the flow of information in much the same way it once pursued dominion over resources such as land and oil."
Your observations of how the press generates and conforms to "group think" - are also incredibly revealing.
There is (what I think) an under appreciated book "The Wisdom of Crowds" by Surowiecki - when you read it you come away thinking that the "wisdom of crowds" exists when a problem is solved independently by a large number of people - and then the solutions filtered for the best answers. The exact opposite of the 'group think' created by the current version of Twitter.
BTW - when I subscribed to Unbound - the last thing the code did was ask me to Tweet my decision. Yech. (But I'll be a regular reader.)
re: wisdom of crowds. During the reign of Hussein Obama, my criticism of his policies was constantly met with, "... but he's so SMART!"
Yes, he is smart, I suppose. But even if he's smarter than ten people, he's not smarter than ten million.
The left thought he was the Messiah.
President Bait & Switch. And it was simply astounding that so many didn't even notice.
I didn't vote for Obama, but in 2008, I genuinely hoped he would fulfill many of his campaign promises. He was supposed to take meaningful action for the benefit of black people, but he didn't. Instead he did his best to magnify and even incite racial conflict. He was supposed to shut down Guantanamo, but he didn't. He was supposed to get us out of wars in the Middle East, but he got us into even more.
The only promise he fulfilled was "Obamacare," which I knew would become a shitshow the moment he revealed that insurance companies (a huge part of the problem) would be front and center. The only "benefit" most Americans have gotten from Obamacare is tripled insurance premiums and (at least) doubled deductibles.
I fell hard for the Hope & Change enchantment in '08 and became bitter and angry by '12 and voted Justice Party instead. Obama was Bush III. Mr. Wall St and War, all the way. It was sickening. One of the things that just kills me is that Trump's rise was an obvious reaction to the Obama betrayals. Of all the Globalist Neocon Uniparty betrayals of the past 4 decades, really. No Donkey will examine or admit that. Still! Oh, no. It was racism and misogyny! And now it's full steam ahead into WW3 and a crashing economy with Doddering Joe, the Progressive IDPOL Puppet as our fearless leader.
No they didn't. They 'said' they thought he was the Messiah, because they think it gives them brownie points when Race War comes. These people wouldn't have invited him into their houses when he was a community organizer or even a law student. They like him more now that he's a kajillionaire deporting Venezuelans from Martha's Vineyard to mainland Massachusetts.
Exactly.
The best Presidents seem to be able to gather conflicting opinions, collect the "sense" of the country and make decisions. Our current administration is trying to govern by committee - a recipe for disaster.
I've maintained for over a decade that the most dangerous person in Washington is Susan Rice, and I believe she is the Chief String-Puller for that most pathetic and cooperative of marionettes, Alleged President Asterisk.
Agreed. Ans she surrounds herself with Powers, Rhodes and a dash of Barack, Kerry and Axelrod.
Central Committee.
I think they govern by number of likes from the blue check twitterati
Some conflate cunning with smart.
And others prefer cunning linguists.
He’s certainly eloquent and has good stage presence. Smart? Yes, compared to some recent presidents, but that’s a low bar. Wise? Definitely not. By all appearances his favorite person is...himself. We’ve had many mediocre to poor Presidents. History will assign Barry to that cohort.
Not sure he is all that smart, but he can give an inspiring speech occasionally
I remember when the left used to say this about conservative speakers; “Hitler gave great speeches!”
Good actors/posers can give great speeches and wow the crowds.
Enjoyed that book