You're so on the money about our newly evolved brains; powerful bio-toys that seem beyond our comprehension. Sometimes I wish evolution had stopped at the great apes.
Or bacteria! Though we know little about them, like why they turn this way or that, happily swimming around in some warm swamp. The odds are certainly with them, on the chance of surviving until the sun swells and vaporizes the planet.
I'm hopeful that some fungi will also survive in symbiosis with the bacteria, Lichens too, which would mean still some photosynthesis by cyanobacteria & the algal cells in lichens
The only thing more sickening than the US and UK behavior in the Assange case is the actually even more sickening non-behavior of the so-called "free world" comprised of the US and UK populations as well as the governments and populations of Germany, France, Italy, etc. I know there are exceptions, like Sevim Dagdelen and Die Linke in Germany, Tulsi Gabbard (now just a person) in the US, a few others. I still hope for a mass movement, a really massive protest, but I'm afraid Julian will die in prison before that happens. It makes me literally sick.
"China is more oppressive domestically, US is more oppressive abroad." I don't think the first sentence is "settled science." Tyranny abroad always comes home to roost, and in the last 2 years it's come home in spades, first with censorship and stupid unscientific mandates, not with bodily invasions. Whatever happened to be "safe in our persons?"
As someone late to doubting the mainstream media, I would appreciate a primer on how they're manipulated to perform narrative control on behalf of the establishment. I don't think I would be alone in benefiting from such a primer.
FWIW: the MSM isn't so much manipulated as it is a co-conspirator in forming (manipulating) US public opinion with the willing participation of "the people". Snowden's excellent op-ed on Apophenia (on substack) provides insight. We, as information consumers, look for external validation of what we think we want to believe. It is profitable for "news" organizations to give us what we want.
Consider the transformation of Rachael Maddow from "truth-teller" during her days on Air America to propagandist now on MSNBC. The more absurd her "revelations" about (for example) Trump, the larger her audience and the more advertisers were willing to pay to sponsor her show.
You can see the same profit motive if you look at Thom Hartman's body of work. It isn't as if he's "making stuff up", but the way he's "coloring" it.
My disgust with Bush (both of them actually since I clearly recall the abject terror I felt on the first invasion of Iraq) prevented me from clearly understanding that Maddow, Hartman, et. al. weren't really offering me anything other than "not Bush" -- something I really desired at the time. It took 6 years of Obama to finally grok that "not Bush" wasn't even close to what I was seeking. The immortal words of Rodney King come to mind, "Why can't we all -- just get along?"
And there you have it. Some (All?) of us just want "more" and we're willing to do whatever it takes to get that "little bit of more" -- including deluding ourselves into thinking we "deserve" it. When our contemporaries give us a Pulitzer (or a Nobel) for our (self) delusions we hold it high and proclaim ourselves "better". And use it to beat the shit out of anyone who calls out our invisible clothes.
Caitlin calls this capitalism. While I do not (call it capitalism), I don't have a better economic/political/religious frame, defined in just one word, in which to hold it all together. We'd have to explore the Ego and the Id -- which, unfortunately obscures the "truth" (I think) we seek.
The "Breaking Bad" series, especially "El Camino" and "Better Call Saul" reveal that inner discontent in all of us that drives us to want to be better than someone -- anyone. Dylan's "Pawn in their game" touches on this need and how it is manipulated.
Luke Harding, of the Guardian, lies because it gets him attention. That attention sells papers. Sell enough papers and you get to live in New York City and go to Broadway shows. Or you can be Jimmy Page and have an elaborate "Stairway to Heaven" tribute performed at the JFK center with the "cream of society" in attendance.
[On a totally disconnected track, has anyone else wondered at the guilt the "establishment" must feel for JFK's assassination that they put his name on every monument and edifice they can -- but refuse to declassify the archives. ]
TL;DR: The MSM isn't manipulated. It is an active participant. Narrative control is profitable.
Outside of technical matters, "it's just so complicated!" (or the favorite of pseudointellectuals of a liberal bent, "it's nuanced!") usually shows that the speaker is attempting to obfuscate something that is crystal clear.
Orwell, in "Politics and the English Language" makes this plain.
I believe Assange's real crime among the powerful was documenting the absolute corruption of Hilary Clinton and the DNC. She possesses far-reaching claws.
That Trump failed to free Assange (if only for his own self-interest) is merely one more testament to his weakness and dangerous inadequacy as a leader -- his cult-members be damned. Twenty twenty-four will once again offer us the Hobson's choice of uninterrupted empire clothed in shiny blue and red garments.
Censorship remains a vastly more present danger than Russia or China. A representative republic is incompatible with a blinkered citizenry.
NBC's winter Olympic coverage from Beijing should provide all the makings of an excellent drinking game every time the Uyghurs are mentioned and the Palestinians are not. Propaganda is nothing if not predicable.
One reaction I had was thinking about some of the terms. Communist. Which is a communist country? Or a socialist one? Capitalism. Where’s a capitalist country or system?
What defines “right-wing”?
I don’t criticize you for using the terms as you use them here. Nor do I suspect I have any better or more sophisticated understanding of the terms. Nor do I assume you haven’t thought well and carefully and effectively about the set of related issues.
Just description of some of what’s provoked in me, as just one reader.
I’d guess you’re capable of elaborating on the issues at book-length. And here you’ve achieved a sharp, pithy, highly readable piece.
I’m still new to “know” you, and a fan already, for sure.
My only substantive comment, besides strong agreement in general (as far as I understand what you mean by the—what Chomsky calls “open textured” terms), is on the last paragraph.
Yes, I can see that as a reasonable partial explanatory factor, but I think there are many valid alternative—better: additional—facts, perspectives, speculations—with respect to “big explanations” like we’re biologically fearful animals.
There’s so much we don’t know about our nature (and nature, period).
There’s so much we don’t know about the nature of our close cousins and aunts and uncles—and other.
How “fearful” were early humans, their forebears? How fearful are cats? “Scaredy-cats”? Measured against everything else we or they are or were?
If I had to hazard a similar zippy causal explanation, I might say we’re mixtures of the basic/primal emotions, as are reptiles—those inside us and spared or deprived of our differentiating natures.
I guess non-humans, including pre-human (loosely characterized) ancestors are pretty much “afraid”—when they have such capacity—only in response to immediate tangible stimuli (sensations stimulated only by things a physicist could pick out of nature [Chomsky]) and then pretty much only in the moment. No sight or sound of an approaching threat, no fear.
It’s we, and we alone, it’s quite plain, who can create thoughts that can stimulate anticipatory anxiety.
Oops. Did I promise to try to be zippy? -1 or more.
I’d say we’re complex mixtures as emotional creatures. Look at it this way, look at it that.
My amateur understanding of good analyses of such things suggests we were relatively peaceful (vs violent), up until organizations like nation-states were “achieved”. Carrying “trauma” in our biology/genes? It seems like adoption/construction of a metaphor or myth.
A more proximate or powerful cause of widely shared illusions might be the propaganda itself, not some special innate disposition to it. Arising from social-institutional-organizational factors.
Created by people. Can (maybe) be dissolved by people. What in our biology or carried scripts explains revolts, cooperative organization (eg times and places of powerful labor movements)?
What led to Sanders enjoying stronger popular support than any other candidate/political figure circa 2016? To China’s overthrow of at least one kind of tyrannical regime?
Such things, too, we carry in us. So powerfully, I suppose, that the US/global masters must remain so constantly and ferociously engaged in brutal, brutal warfare against the very majority of us?
Almost ready to subscribe, and looking forward to it. (How about some “discount packs of subscriptions, Substack—or Substackers?!)
I appreciate your work, so far. May you reap what reward you seek. ❤️
Does it leave a “comment deleted” post? I guess I have just thought (superficially) that I don’t want to contribute to making things messier than they can often get.
You mean because it can manipulate or just unwittingly change how “likes” or follow-up might be interpreted?
The best practice would be for me to compose and revise elsewhere and post later.
But the systems seem to pull for immediacy. And … ADHD doesn’t help. I never remember to do that until I see my typos or realize how I could have better phrased.
But you’re right: not as simple a set of issue as it may sometimes seem.
You're so on the money about our newly evolved brains; powerful bio-toys that seem beyond our comprehension. Sometimes I wish evolution had stopped at the great apes.
Or bacteria! Though we know little about them, like why they turn this way or that, happily swimming around in some warm swamp. The odds are certainly with them, on the chance of surviving until the sun swells and vaporizes the planet.
I'm hopeful that some fungi will also survive in symbiosis with the bacteria, Lichens too, which would mean still some photosynthesis by cyanobacteria & the algal cells in lichens
The only thing more sickening than the US and UK behavior in the Assange case is the actually even more sickening non-behavior of the so-called "free world" comprised of the US and UK populations as well as the governments and populations of Germany, France, Italy, etc. I know there are exceptions, like Sevim Dagdelen and Die Linke in Germany, Tulsi Gabbard (now just a person) in the US, a few others. I still hope for a mass movement, a really massive protest, but I'm afraid Julian will die in prison before that happens. It makes me literally sick.
"China is more oppressive domestically, US is more oppressive abroad." I don't think the first sentence is "settled science." Tyranny abroad always comes home to roost, and in the last 2 years it's come home in spades, first with censorship and stupid unscientific mandates, not with bodily invasions. Whatever happened to be "safe in our persons?"
Important points and thought munchies. Technically, she prefaced that with “People will say …” which maybe you had in mind, or maybe missed.
No weakening of your fine contribution, either way. Thanks.
Bravo - thank you for content and the outstanding audio delivery -- the best among all the podcasts I listen to... !!
As someone late to doubting the mainstream media, I would appreciate a primer on how they're manipulated to perform narrative control on behalf of the establishment. I don't think I would be alone in benefiting from such a primer.
FWIW: the MSM isn't so much manipulated as it is a co-conspirator in forming (manipulating) US public opinion with the willing participation of "the people". Snowden's excellent op-ed on Apophenia (on substack) provides insight. We, as information consumers, look for external validation of what we think we want to believe. It is profitable for "news" organizations to give us what we want.
Consider the transformation of Rachael Maddow from "truth-teller" during her days on Air America to propagandist now on MSNBC. The more absurd her "revelations" about (for example) Trump, the larger her audience and the more advertisers were willing to pay to sponsor her show.
You can see the same profit motive if you look at Thom Hartman's body of work. It isn't as if he's "making stuff up", but the way he's "coloring" it.
My disgust with Bush (both of them actually since I clearly recall the abject terror I felt on the first invasion of Iraq) prevented me from clearly understanding that Maddow, Hartman, et. al. weren't really offering me anything other than "not Bush" -- something I really desired at the time. It took 6 years of Obama to finally grok that "not Bush" wasn't even close to what I was seeking. The immortal words of Rodney King come to mind, "Why can't we all -- just get along?"
And there you have it. Some (All?) of us just want "more" and we're willing to do whatever it takes to get that "little bit of more" -- including deluding ourselves into thinking we "deserve" it. When our contemporaries give us a Pulitzer (or a Nobel) for our (self) delusions we hold it high and proclaim ourselves "better". And use it to beat the shit out of anyone who calls out our invisible clothes.
Caitlin calls this capitalism. While I do not (call it capitalism), I don't have a better economic/political/religious frame, defined in just one word, in which to hold it all together. We'd have to explore the Ego and the Id -- which, unfortunately obscures the "truth" (I think) we seek.
The "Breaking Bad" series, especially "El Camino" and "Better Call Saul" reveal that inner discontent in all of us that drives us to want to be better than someone -- anyone. Dylan's "Pawn in their game" touches on this need and how it is manipulated.
Luke Harding, of the Guardian, lies because it gets him attention. That attention sells papers. Sell enough papers and you get to live in New York City and go to Broadway shows. Or you can be Jimmy Page and have an elaborate "Stairway to Heaven" tribute performed at the JFK center with the "cream of society" in attendance.
[On a totally disconnected track, has anyone else wondered at the guilt the "establishment" must feel for JFK's assassination that they put his name on every monument and edifice they can -- but refuse to declassify the archives. ]
TL;DR: The MSM isn't manipulated. It is an active participant. Narrative control is profitable.
Outside of technical matters, "it's just so complicated!" (or the favorite of pseudointellectuals of a liberal bent, "it's nuanced!") usually shows that the speaker is attempting to obfuscate something that is crystal clear.
Orwell, in "Politics and the English Language" makes this plain.
My favorite: "The Israeli/Palestinian peace process is so complicated." Just ask AOC about it.
I believe Assange's real crime among the powerful was documenting the absolute corruption of Hilary Clinton and the DNC. She possesses far-reaching claws.
That Trump failed to free Assange (if only for his own self-interest) is merely one more testament to his weakness and dangerous inadequacy as a leader -- his cult-members be damned. Twenty twenty-four will once again offer us the Hobson's choice of uninterrupted empire clothed in shiny blue and red garments.
Censorship remains a vastly more present danger than Russia or China. A representative republic is incompatible with a blinkered citizenry.
NBC's winter Olympic coverage from Beijing should provide all the makings of an excellent drinking game every time the Uyghurs are mentioned and the Palestinians are not. Propaganda is nothing if not predicable.
America continues to suck unnecessarily.
Great article. Not sure that mutations produce anything good let alone outsized brains though.
Great points and style.
One reaction I had was thinking about some of the terms. Communist. Which is a communist country? Or a socialist one? Capitalism. Where’s a capitalist country or system?
What defines “right-wing”?
I don’t criticize you for using the terms as you use them here. Nor do I suspect I have any better or more sophisticated understanding of the terms. Nor do I assume you haven’t thought well and carefully and effectively about the set of related issues.
Just description of some of what’s provoked in me, as just one reader.
I’d guess you’re capable of elaborating on the issues at book-length. And here you’ve achieved a sharp, pithy, highly readable piece.
I’m still new to “know” you, and a fan already, for sure.
My only substantive comment, besides strong agreement in general (as far as I understand what you mean by the—what Chomsky calls “open textured” terms), is on the last paragraph.
Yes, I can see that as a reasonable partial explanatory factor, but I think there are many valid alternative—better: additional—facts, perspectives, speculations—with respect to “big explanations” like we’re biologically fearful animals.
There’s so much we don’t know about our nature (and nature, period).
There’s so much we don’t know about the nature of our close cousins and aunts and uncles—and other.
How “fearful” were early humans, their forebears? How fearful are cats? “Scaredy-cats”? Measured against everything else we or they are or were?
If I had to hazard a similar zippy causal explanation, I might say we’re mixtures of the basic/primal emotions, as are reptiles—those inside us and spared or deprived of our differentiating natures.
I guess non-humans, including pre-human (loosely characterized) ancestors are pretty much “afraid”—when they have such capacity—only in response to immediate tangible stimuli (sensations stimulated only by things a physicist could pick out of nature [Chomsky]) and then pretty much only in the moment. No sight or sound of an approaching threat, no fear.
It’s we, and we alone, it’s quite plain, who can create thoughts that can stimulate anticipatory anxiety.
Oops. Did I promise to try to be zippy? -1 or more.
I’d say we’re complex mixtures as emotional creatures. Look at it this way, look at it that.
My amateur understanding of good analyses of such things suggests we were relatively peaceful (vs violent), up until organizations like nation-states were “achieved”. Carrying “trauma” in our biology/genes? It seems like adoption/construction of a metaphor or myth.
A more proximate or powerful cause of widely shared illusions might be the propaganda itself, not some special innate disposition to it. Arising from social-institutional-organizational factors.
Created by people. Can (maybe) be dissolved by people. What in our biology or carried scripts explains revolts, cooperative organization (eg times and places of powerful labor movements)?
What led to Sanders enjoying stronger popular support than any other candidate/political figure circa 2016? To China’s overthrow of at least one kind of tyrannical regime?
Such things, too, we carry in us. So powerfully, I suppose, that the US/global masters must remain so constantly and ferociously engaged in brutal, brutal warfare against the very majority of us?
Almost ready to subscribe, and looking forward to it. (How about some “discount packs of subscriptions, Substack—or Substackers?!)
I appreciate your work, so far. May you reap what reward you seek. ❤️
And why in name of The Creative Power can’t we edit these comments. I might have won a Pulitzer. Well… not that, but … maybe some likes? 😂
You can edit your comment by deleting the entire thing and reposting it. I find myself rather ambivalent about editing in context.
Does it leave a “comment deleted” post? I guess I have just thought (superficially) that I don’t want to contribute to making things messier than they can often get.
You mean because it can manipulate or just unwittingly change how “likes” or follow-up might be interpreted?
The best practice would be for me to compose and revise elsewhere and post later.
But the systems seem to pull for immediacy. And … ADHD doesn’t help. I never remember to do that until I see my typos or realize how I could have better phrased.
But you’re right: not as simple a set of issue as it may sometimes seem.
+1 on a comment editor button.
On the money... thank you
FREE --FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW-- TO UN--EU-- MEDIA.. IT IS TIME TO FREE HIM NOW.. THERE IS CRIMINALS AND GO FREE , USA.. UK.. -----FREE HIM NOW.