Extensive government blacklists, revealed by the Twitter Files, are used to censor left-wing and right-wing critics. This censorship apparatus has been turned on the reporter who exposed them.
I worry for the safety of you, and Matt and Aaron Mate and all the other reporters doing real journalism. I worry that you may end up like Julian Assange. Reporting the truth that is inconvenient to the American Empire managers seems every bit as dangerous as your previous position as a war correspondent. Thank you for your courage and your willingness to expose the truth.
It's sort of dizzying for Taibbi to go from earnest, honest reporitngr to pariah for doing the same stuff, the same kind of reporting. Reporting is just setting down the facts as best one can; there is no animus involved.
They have blown through any concern of theirs for being called on their hypocrisy. They think they own the complete media spin factory so they just look at each lie as a temporary project to recover from. It works as the general population are not well informed and just repeat what their media feeds say or don't say.
The left has become a media-powered political talking points factory. Just debate any educated leftist on the Great Lies - Trump-Russia collusion & Hunter Biden's laptop - and they have a list of talking points including how Mueller put the hammer down on Trump and Durham struck out. They all got the same memo. They are like networked mycelium.
There is no winning the info wars (except for careful legislation to fix what is broken in big tech)... we can only hope to beat them back at the polls.
Frank, just because the people and institutions you write about in your paragraph two are called the left doesn’t mean that is an accurate appellation. The left has disappeared from even the margins of the US political mainstream. The ‘educated leftists’ you speak of have abandoned the ‘left’. Don’t let them have the privilege of redefining it.
Tucker Carlson was fired specifically to shut him up
He routinely voiced out loud to MILLIONS truths that were/are obscene and terrifying to the “uniparty” deep stare (disguised as the Democratic Party) that now controls the United States
RFK Jr. may be the most courageous politician of our age. They murdered his uncle and his father
If they cannot shut him up, discredit him, or otherwise destroy him they will not hesitate to use any means necessary to ensure he never gets his hands on the levers of power
Writing in 1952 Hungarian intellectual and writer Georg Lukacs noted:
“In contrast to Germany, the U.S.A. had a constitution which was democratic from the start.
And its ruling class managed, particularly during the imperialist era, to have the democratic forms so effectively preserved that by democratically legal means, it achieved a dictatorship of monopoly capitalism at least as firm as that which Hitler set up with tyrannic procedures.
This smoothly functioning democracy, so-called, was created by the Presidential prerogative, the Supreme Court’s authority in constitutional questions, the finance monopoly over the Press, radio, etc., electioneering costs, which successfully prevented really democratic parties from springing up beside the two parties of monopoly capitalism, and lastly the use of terroristic devices (the lynching system).
And this democracy could, in substance, realize everything sought by Hitler without needing to break with democracy formally.
In addition, there was the incomparably broader and more solid economic basis of monopoly capitalism.”
Georg Lukacs
Lukács, The Destruction of Reason, 77
We live within a system of cartel, transnational capitalism. Large, enormous focal points of private capital creating one big financial cartel.
The role of any political party within this system is to manage the crisis' that cartel capitalism produces while deflecting the masses from those same problems.
Not seeing it Andrew. I live in a college town that is 80% liberal and tends to be like an hour-glass in age demographics. There are woke young college students and older liberal progressives. They all croak the same frog song. My older liberal friends are woke now. They support silencing political opposition. They all ingested the sickness.
You got 10 likes on your comment which indicates that the people subscribing and reading Matt's stuff maybe of that very tribe you claim exists. However, I think you are a small minority... having more in common with an educated Trump supporter than you realize or care to admit.
Frank, I think you are right about us being a small minority. I would also like to wish away the effects of the continuous propaganda on people who at one time were on the left. But, I guess I see them as having left the left, rather than still being of it. I may be making a distinction without a difference, but if the people you speak of really are the left, then I don’t have any words with which I can conceptualize who I am. I may need some help with that.
I view left and right as being on a linear spectrum where at the extreme right we have anarchy (zero government and complete individual freedom) and the extreme left being complete collectivist authoritarianism that attempts to equalize outcomes for all. In between these two extremes are many differences and many people that cross over. The fallacy of right extremism is dictatorial authoritarianism and/or fascism. For example Nazism was/is branded as a right ideology, but it is not any different than is Chinese communism in its motivation, aim and base ideology. It is on the far left spectrum that government dictates and controls the people and seeks to provide more equal outcomes (except for those in power making the decisions... a key point seemingly ignored by the lovers of collectivist ideologies).
I subscribe to a bucket of ideas and principles that is best described as libertarian paternalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_paternalism That is a limited government approach designed to help people who behave irrationally and so are not advancing their own interests, while interfering only minimally with people who behave rationally.
For example, bust, prosecute and incarcerate those using guns illegally, and stop working to take away guns from law-abiding people that use them legally and responsibly.
That puts me right-center in terms of traditional left (liberal) vs right (conservative) values; but WAY right in terms of modern left vs right values.
My friends are around my age and baby boomers. And they are at best silent on the censorship regime... say the Twitter Files are a big nothing burger. They don't care about the exploding national debt and think we need to increase taxes, implement more social programs and even take over whole industries like energy, healthcare, banking and insurance that the government would run. Mostly they like the advantage of the system putting so many thumbs on the scale for their political team. They really don't seem to have adopted real principles other than to see their political team win.
You can jump on Heather Richardson Cox's Substack, or Robert Reich's and see for yourself. The comments and the likes are a clear indication that our average coastal and big city liberals have gone extreme left and are fine with it.
At this point your continued mis-representation of Democrats, the media and the surveillance state which operates in large part to turn citizens into consumers and keep us in check, as "the left", has to be intentional. It gets really old, really fast. But then, you're the same on literally any contentious issue on which you've already chosen a side. In that way you're the same or worse as these people being criticized. It's also somewhat funny in an ironic way when the topic happens to be Israel and Palestine. You're absolutely fine with an apartheid surveillance state that exercises massive groupthink, consumes propaganda 24/7/365 and implements information totalitarianism. But in that case it's 'franklee' "for a good cause", right "Frank"?
Gee I must have missed the part about racial purity in the CCP's governance. Let me guess...TIBET! or THE UIGHURS! (in which case you align exactly with the "woke" libtards that you live around).
The reason I support Chris, Matt and Glenn is because each of you has shown the determination to continue to put the truth out there despite the consequences Chris spelled out today. I really appreciate that each of you keeps the faith with what used to be the Left.
Thanks Chris, excellent report. A lot of my friends are blue pill Democrats. If I say our problems run deeper than Trump, it upsets them. I think a lot of the blame is on the US media. My friends think The NY Times tells them all they need to know.
"Extensive government blacklists, revealed by the Twitter Files, are used to censor left-wing and right-wing critics."
“There were probably a lot of people who were frightened by the spectacle of the rise of Donald Trump,” he said. “They were told over and over again that this was a Christian nationalist neofascist movement. There are elements of that. There’s real truth to that."
"It fears the rise of the neofascists its dysfunction and corruption have spawned."
You see the problem here? It is Chris and Matt and others supposedly on the side against the censorship regime giving support to the enemy. I can see clearly why... there is an emotional connection to the anti-right cult of journalism that just cannot die. It is like they are fully committed to swimming in the deep part of the pool while still holding onto the shallow end for fear of swimming completely alone.
There is no material fascism contained within the 75 million who voted for Trump in 2020. Those fringe groups pale in comparison to the millions of leftist activists ready to burn down cities for the DNC.
Just stop repeating this lie that the censorship regime is attacking leftwing critics and that Trump supporters are fascists. These are material lies from the censorship regime that give legitimacy to the censorship regime.
I have subscribed to Matt Taibbi since he started Useful Idiots with Katie Halper. I have often found myself in profound disagreement but I am 75 autistic and my perceptions are my reality and Matt's perceptions are his reality. My Russia is the Russia of Mark Twain when my ancestors suffered the consequences of an Empire where Jews were to be the Goldstein that precipitated every injustice.
In Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary of the English language a cabal is a secret society of Hebrew Rabbins and I guess it is a core belief of all conservatives even Israel's highest Rabbins. Johnson calls cabbalists the wisest of the wise and for conservatives truth is always the enemy.
When one accepts one's own idiocy it is easier to believe that genius is not knowing but knowing that you don't know.
The enlightenment began in Vilnius, Lithuania not Paris, London or Rome under the Gaon of Vilna who believed in liberal democracy and all were equal in the eyes of the almighty. Hasidism was a response to liberal democracy and despite Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin liberal democracy was held in check until the Paris Commune insurrection of the late 19th century.
Voltaire said perception is reality and I am autistic and I don't know what that means but my perception is my fact checking confirms my perceptions but that is only my perception.
I welcome Matt Taibbi's perceptions they help me examine my own.
I regard Matt Taibbi as Socratic and John Ralston Saul is my go to Socratic Philosopher and who I most trust on Press Freedom. There is a reason he was twice elected leader of PEN International.
I live in a secular humanist liberal democracy and trust my local independent newspaper to provide me with a Socratic presentation of the news not available in most of English speaking North America.
The press keeps our Premier under a microscope and we have a impenetrable wall between church and state. We fly the maize and blue in addition to the flags of Bourbon France and the Maple Leaf.
Neither the red white and blue of Russia or the stars and stripes represent our metaphysics.
Better to be a useless idiot than a useful one. In all seriousness, your thoughtful analysis suggests that you are a wise individual. Thanks for sharing
John Ralston Saul uses neoliberalism to describe the Democratic party. Saul explains that neoliberalism is neither new nor liberal. European history was Saul's forte at Oxford. He has been largely cancelled in the USA since The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of The World. 1995 when Time Magazine called him a prophet.
Censorship is the primary tool of totalitarian regimes. Obviously the media does not report on its own censorship practices. Thanks to Chris and Substack, at least some of us are aware of it. It takes only a small minority to keep the narrative becoming endemic. We need to do everything we can to fight back agains this censorship -- not just to spread the word about it, but to fight back legally in every way possible.
Too bad the left didn't recognize what was going on during the Trump administration and the agenda the democrats had in regard to Trump, and this countrie's agenda. They tried to oust an elected president, delegitimize his base, worked with the deep state and implemented a much broader authoritarian rule that would allow them to lie their way out of everything, and anything. I hold the left as accountable as the mainstream media which operated with no sense of objectivity or independence. The democrat's turn toward a more authoritarian stance was veiled because so many on the left held Trump and his base in utter contempt, and blinded them to the truth and still does. Shame on them.
As I read this Taibbi was on FOX who was willing to listen to his story. Only FOX has allowed his story to be told publicly, not MSNBC or the mainstream media. I hope people have listened to Jimmy Dore on the so called insurrection, BREAKING! Hundreds Of Undercover Feds Were In The Crowd On Jan 6th! You-tube.
Despite the cold, grave reality of Matt Taibbi’s persecution depicted by Chris Hedges, I am more shocked and disappointed by the commentary here that is dominated by fake-party loyalists who seem oblivious to the great divide that exists between the 99% of Americans who have no political representation and the oligarchs who own the government. This is analogous to quibbling over the deck chair arrangement on a sinking ship.
“There were probably a lot of people who were frightened by the spectacle of the rise of Donald Trump,” he said. “They were told over and over again that this was a Christian nationalist neofascist movement. There are elements of that. There’s real truth to that. But in response to it they became exactly the thing they were telling everybody they were fighting against. By the time people wake up it might be a little bit too late, which is unfortunate.”
Many of those who suffer(ed) Trump derangement syndrome or any of the other Security State contrived ailments became staunch advocates of censorship. I hope it's not too late for some of them to have a "Jesus fucking Christ" moment.
Has the United States passed its expiration date? What part of dysfunction don't we get when the possible/probable candidates for the "leader of the free world" are an octogenarian and a sociopath? Journalists like Taibbi are targeted and their peers are acquiescent. Where are the writers of The Nation and Mother Jones? There are members of Çongress I have admired and wonder where they stand. Jamie Raskin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tammie Duckworth and Sherrod Brown are a few. I know there are people who are trying to fix the system and groups like Medea Benjamin's, MoveToAmend, WorldWithoutWar. Yet small, loud negative groups have been able to resonate. Here in Sarasota, FL I saw it with MomsForLiberty. One of the founders serves as chair of our school board! I trace it back to the 1971 Powell Memorandum. A playbook that's been copied and exploited. Is there hope? Are people waking up? At 90 I'm not sure I'll live to see it.
I think you're spot on that the Powell paper for the Business Roundtable is a crucial source of our society's decline. It led to today's income inequality as unions were destroyed and corporations acquired the Democratic Party. Wages had gone up with productivity increases until that 1971 period. Since then, wages have been stagnant, and an ever-increasing share of the national income is directed to the top 1%.
Glad to hear from Sarasota. --a former resident...
I'm not sure if this allowed. But can/may we exchange emails? So often people write comments that make we wish we could continue the conversation. I'm so used to people to people and in person communication that this new world frustrates me. But on the other hand it allows communication world wide......what a world! Here goes, sorry if I'm breaking a rule. This is where I pull the "age"card. :-) rhana3@verizon.net
I call it the "Powell Memo Program". The Right/fascists had a blueprint handed to them in a handful of crisp pages, and they followed it faithfully, through every setback, just plowing doggedly ahead. The corporate takeover was complete by the 2000s, if not before W, then certainly after. Chris is too right in calling this out. The irony is that the right had their program out in the open all this time. They never hid anything, and were never delicate or thoughtful about it. We could see them miles off, and they walked right over everyone.
I worry for the safety of you, and Matt and Aaron Mate and all the other reporters doing real journalism. I worry that you may end up like Julian Assange. Reporting the truth that is inconvenient to the American Empire managers seems every bit as dangerous as your previous position as a war correspondent. Thank you for your courage and your willingness to expose the truth.
It's sort of dizzying for Taibbi to go from earnest, honest reporitngr to pariah for doing the same stuff, the same kind of reporting. Reporting is just setting down the facts as best one can; there is no animus involved.
Remember how upset Trump was when khashoggi got executed by the Saudis in the bathroom of the turkey embassy?
I can guarantee you that if Twitter were censoring critics of Trump, the Team D goodthink set would be singing a very different tune.
Remember when Trump insulting some journalist was received as the equivalent of Kirstallnacht?
They have blown through any concern of theirs for being called on their hypocrisy. They think they own the complete media spin factory so they just look at each lie as a temporary project to recover from. It works as the general population are not well informed and just repeat what their media feeds say or don't say.
The left has become a media-powered political talking points factory. Just debate any educated leftist on the Great Lies - Trump-Russia collusion & Hunter Biden's laptop - and they have a list of talking points including how Mueller put the hammer down on Trump and Durham struck out. They all got the same memo. They are like networked mycelium.
There is no winning the info wars (except for careful legislation to fix what is broken in big tech)... we can only hope to beat them back at the polls.
Frank, just because the people and institutions you write about in your paragraph two are called the left doesn’t mean that is an accurate appellation. The left has disappeared from even the margins of the US political mainstream. The ‘educated leftists’ you speak of have abandoned the ‘left’. Don’t let them have the privilege of redefining it.
Left and right have no relation whatsoever to what those labels meant or inferred 20 years ago
We no longer even have a “left” or a “right”
We have a totalitarian uniparty determined to destroy our culture, our constitution, and all the freedoms that went with it
Their objective is a global “state”, the sovereignty of which trumps that of any nation state including especially the USA
Tucker Carlson was fired specifically to shut him up
He routinely voiced out loud to MILLIONS truths that were/are obscene and terrifying to the “uniparty” deep stare (disguised as the Democratic Party) that now controls the United States
RFK Jr. may be the most courageous politician of our age. They murdered his uncle and his father
If they cannot shut him up, discredit him, or otherwise destroy him they will not hesitate to use any means necessary to ensure he never gets his hands on the levers of power
Left and right have no relation whatsoever to what those labels meant or inferred 20 years ago
We no longer even have a “left” or a “right”
We have a totalitarian uniparty determined to destroy our culture, our constitution, and all the freedoms that went with it
Their objective is a global “state”, the sovereignty of which trumps that of any nation state including especially the USA
Writing in 1952 Hungarian intellectual and writer Georg Lukacs noted:
“In contrast to Germany, the U.S.A. had a constitution which was democratic from the start.
And its ruling class managed, particularly during the imperialist era, to have the democratic forms so effectively preserved that by democratically legal means, it achieved a dictatorship of monopoly capitalism at least as firm as that which Hitler set up with tyrannic procedures.
This smoothly functioning democracy, so-called, was created by the Presidential prerogative, the Supreme Court’s authority in constitutional questions, the finance monopoly over the Press, radio, etc., electioneering costs, which successfully prevented really democratic parties from springing up beside the two parties of monopoly capitalism, and lastly the use of terroristic devices (the lynching system).
And this democracy could, in substance, realize everything sought by Hitler without needing to break with democracy formally.
In addition, there was the incomparably broader and more solid economic basis of monopoly capitalism.”
Georg Lukacs
Lukács, The Destruction of Reason, 77
We live within a system of cartel, transnational capitalism. Large, enormous focal points of private capital creating one big financial cartel.
The role of any political party within this system is to manage the crisis' that cartel capitalism produces while deflecting the masses from those same problems.
Not seeing it Andrew. I live in a college town that is 80% liberal and tends to be like an hour-glass in age demographics. There are woke young college students and older liberal progressives. They all croak the same frog song. My older liberal friends are woke now. They support silencing political opposition. They all ingested the sickness.
You got 10 likes on your comment which indicates that the people subscribing and reading Matt's stuff maybe of that very tribe you claim exists. However, I think you are a small minority... having more in common with an educated Trump supporter than you realize or care to admit.
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2021/12/14/for-many-americans-views-of-offensive-speech-arent-necessarily-clear-cut/
Frank, I think you are right about us being a small minority. I would also like to wish away the effects of the continuous propaganda on people who at one time were on the left. But, I guess I see them as having left the left, rather than still being of it. I may be making a distinction without a difference, but if the people you speak of really are the left, then I don’t have any words with which I can conceptualize who I am. I may need some help with that.
I view left and right as being on a linear spectrum where at the extreme right we have anarchy (zero government and complete individual freedom) and the extreme left being complete collectivist authoritarianism that attempts to equalize outcomes for all. In between these two extremes are many differences and many people that cross over. The fallacy of right extremism is dictatorial authoritarianism and/or fascism. For example Nazism was/is branded as a right ideology, but it is not any different than is Chinese communism in its motivation, aim and base ideology. It is on the far left spectrum that government dictates and controls the people and seeks to provide more equal outcomes (except for those in power making the decisions... a key point seemingly ignored by the lovers of collectivist ideologies).
I subscribe to a bucket of ideas and principles that is best described as libertarian paternalism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_paternalism That is a limited government approach designed to help people who behave irrationally and so are not advancing their own interests, while interfering only minimally with people who behave rationally.
For example, bust, prosecute and incarcerate those using guns illegally, and stop working to take away guns from law-abiding people that use them legally and responsibly.
That puts me right-center in terms of traditional left (liberal) vs right (conservative) values; but WAY right in terms of modern left vs right values.
My friends are around my age and baby boomers. And they are at best silent on the censorship regime... say the Twitter Files are a big nothing burger. They don't care about the exploding national debt and think we need to increase taxes, implement more social programs and even take over whole industries like energy, healthcare, banking and insurance that the government would run. Mostly they like the advantage of the system putting so many thumbs on the scale for their political team. They really don't seem to have adopted real principles other than to see their political team win.
You can jump on Heather Richardson Cox's Substack, or Robert Reich's and see for yourself. The comments and the likes are a clear indication that our average coastal and big city liberals have gone extreme left and are fine with it.
At this point your continued mis-representation of Democrats, the media and the surveillance state which operates in large part to turn citizens into consumers and keep us in check, as "the left", has to be intentional. It gets really old, really fast. But then, you're the same on literally any contentious issue on which you've already chosen a side. In that way you're the same or worse as these people being criticized. It's also somewhat funny in an ironic way when the topic happens to be Israel and Palestine. You're absolutely fine with an apartheid surveillance state that exercises massive groupthink, consumes propaganda 24/7/365 and implements information totalitarianism. But in that case it's 'franklee' "for a good cause", right "Frank"?
Gee I must have missed the part about racial purity in the CCP's governance. Let me guess...TIBET! or THE UIGHURS! (in which case you align exactly with the "woke" libtards that you live around).
This isn't Matt Taibbi's Substack, "Frank." It's Chris Hedges'.
Ok Muffy. You have some insatiable need to be right even when your point is twaddle. One for Muffy!
The reason I support Chris, Matt and Glenn is because each of you has shown the determination to continue to put the truth out there despite the consequences Chris spelled out today. I really appreciate that each of you keeps the faith with what used to be the Left.
I highly recommend Caitlin Johnstone's piece today on propaganda: https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/most-propaganda-looks-nothing-like
Matt Taibbi has long been one of my favorite writer/speakers to learn from. Mr. Hedges is another.
Thanks Chris, excellent report. A lot of my friends are blue pill Democrats. If I say our problems run deeper than Trump, it upsets them. I think a lot of the blame is on the US media. My friends think The NY Times tells them all they need to know.
Argggggg!!!!
"Extensive government blacklists, revealed by the Twitter Files, are used to censor left-wing and right-wing critics."
“There were probably a lot of people who were frightened by the spectacle of the rise of Donald Trump,” he said. “They were told over and over again that this was a Christian nationalist neofascist movement. There are elements of that. There’s real truth to that."
"It fears the rise of the neofascists its dysfunction and corruption have spawned."
You see the problem here? It is Chris and Matt and others supposedly on the side against the censorship regime giving support to the enemy. I can see clearly why... there is an emotional connection to the anti-right cult of journalism that just cannot die. It is like they are fully committed to swimming in the deep part of the pool while still holding onto the shallow end for fear of swimming completely alone.
There is no material fascism contained within the 75 million who voted for Trump in 2020. Those fringe groups pale in comparison to the millions of leftist activists ready to burn down cities for the DNC.
Just stop repeating this lie that the censorship regime is attacking leftwing critics and that Trump supporters are fascists. These are material lies from the censorship regime that give legitimacy to the censorship regime.
I have subscribed to Matt Taibbi since he started Useful Idiots with Katie Halper. I have often found myself in profound disagreement but I am 75 autistic and my perceptions are my reality and Matt's perceptions are his reality. My Russia is the Russia of Mark Twain when my ancestors suffered the consequences of an Empire where Jews were to be the Goldstein that precipitated every injustice.
In Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary of the English language a cabal is a secret society of Hebrew Rabbins and I guess it is a core belief of all conservatives even Israel's highest Rabbins. Johnson calls cabbalists the wisest of the wise and for conservatives truth is always the enemy.
When one accepts one's own idiocy it is easier to believe that genius is not knowing but knowing that you don't know.
The enlightenment began in Vilnius, Lithuania not Paris, London or Rome under the Gaon of Vilna who believed in liberal democracy and all were equal in the eyes of the almighty. Hasidism was a response to liberal democracy and despite Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin liberal democracy was held in check until the Paris Commune insurrection of the late 19th century.
Voltaire said perception is reality and I am autistic and I don't know what that means but my perception is my fact checking confirms my perceptions but that is only my perception.
I welcome Matt Taibbi's perceptions they help me examine my own.
I regard Matt Taibbi as Socratic and John Ralston Saul is my go to Socratic Philosopher and who I most trust on Press Freedom. There is a reason he was twice elected leader of PEN International.
I live in a secular humanist liberal democracy and trust my local independent newspaper to provide me with a Socratic presentation of the news not available in most of English speaking North America.
The press keeps our Premier under a microscope and we have a impenetrable wall between church and state. We fly the maize and blue in addition to the flags of Bourbon France and the Maple Leaf.
Neither the red white and blue of Russia or the stars and stripes represent our metaphysics.
I wish Matt well I am just a useless idiot.
Better to be a useless idiot than a useful one. In all seriousness, your thoughtful analysis suggests that you are a wise individual. Thanks for sharing
Thanks DBB
John Ralston Saul uses neoliberalism to describe the Democratic party. Saul explains that neoliberalism is neither new nor liberal. European history was Saul's forte at Oxford. He has been largely cancelled in the USA since The Collapse of Globalism and the Reinvention of The World. 1995 when Time Magazine called him a prophet.
Censorship is the primary tool of totalitarian regimes. Obviously the media does not report on its own censorship practices. Thanks to Chris and Substack, at least some of us are aware of it. It takes only a small minority to keep the narrative becoming endemic. We need to do everything we can to fight back agains this censorship -- not just to spread the word about it, but to fight back legally in every way possible.
"When these institutions break down, when they don’t work anymore, this is what happens."
They work just fine. Just not for us.
Too bad the left didn't recognize what was going on during the Trump administration and the agenda the democrats had in regard to Trump, and this countrie's agenda. They tried to oust an elected president, delegitimize his base, worked with the deep state and implemented a much broader authoritarian rule that would allow them to lie their way out of everything, and anything. I hold the left as accountable as the mainstream media which operated with no sense of objectivity or independence. The democrat's turn toward a more authoritarian stance was veiled because so many on the left held Trump and his base in utter contempt, and blinded them to the truth and still does. Shame on them.
As I read this Taibbi was on FOX who was willing to listen to his story. Only FOX has allowed his story to be told publicly, not MSNBC or the mainstream media. I hope people have listened to Jimmy Dore on the so called insurrection, BREAKING! Hundreds Of Undercover Feds Were In The Crowd On Jan 6th! You-tube.
The Democrats are responsible for the fascists of the far right , Magas and other extremists?
It seems as to me a very convenient narrative for the group that is run by gas and oil companies and lobbiests.
Why do you consistently blame the media for Donald Trumps actions. This man is twisted w hatred and seeks retribution with every
Opportunity for coverage.
I suppose the Ron De Santis’ of this world harbour their suppression of every ‘liberal ‘ thought or word because of Democrats.
Do you ever allow accountability for the fascists?
You sure did miss the actual point of this piece. Kind of incredible what you did and didn’t get from this.
Despite the cold, grave reality of Matt Taibbi’s persecution depicted by Chris Hedges, I am more shocked and disappointed by the commentary here that is dominated by fake-party loyalists who seem oblivious to the great divide that exists between the 99% of Americans who have no political representation and the oligarchs who own the government. This is analogous to quibbling over the deck chair arrangement on a sinking ship.
I've noticed this as well:
“There were probably a lot of people who were frightened by the spectacle of the rise of Donald Trump,” he said. “They were told over and over again that this was a Christian nationalist neofascist movement. There are elements of that. There’s real truth to that. But in response to it they became exactly the thing they were telling everybody they were fighting against. By the time people wake up it might be a little bit too late, which is unfortunate.”
Many of those who suffer(ed) Trump derangement syndrome or any of the other Security State contrived ailments became staunch advocates of censorship. I hope it's not too late for some of them to have a "Jesus fucking Christ" moment.
Has the United States passed its expiration date? What part of dysfunction don't we get when the possible/probable candidates for the "leader of the free world" are an octogenarian and a sociopath? Journalists like Taibbi are targeted and their peers are acquiescent. Where are the writers of The Nation and Mother Jones? There are members of Çongress I have admired and wonder where they stand. Jamie Raskin, Sheldon Whitehouse, Tammie Duckworth and Sherrod Brown are a few. I know there are people who are trying to fix the system and groups like Medea Benjamin's, MoveToAmend, WorldWithoutWar. Yet small, loud negative groups have been able to resonate. Here in Sarasota, FL I saw it with MomsForLiberty. One of the founders serves as chair of our school board! I trace it back to the 1971 Powell Memorandum. A playbook that's been copied and exploited. Is there hope? Are people waking up? At 90 I'm not sure I'll live to see it.
I think you're spot on that the Powell paper for the Business Roundtable is a crucial source of our society's decline. It led to today's income inequality as unions were destroyed and corporations acquired the Democratic Party. Wages had gone up with productivity increases until that 1971 period. Since then, wages have been stagnant, and an ever-increasing share of the national income is directed to the top 1%.
Glad to hear from Sarasota. --a former resident...
I'm not sure if this allowed. But can/may we exchange emails? So often people write comments that make we wish we could continue the conversation. I'm so used to people to people and in person communication that this new world frustrates me. But on the other hand it allows communication world wide......what a world! Here goes, sorry if I'm breaking a rule. This is where I pull the "age"card. :-) rhana3@verizon.net
I call it the "Powell Memo Program". The Right/fascists had a blueprint handed to them in a handful of crisp pages, and they followed it faithfully, through every setback, just plowing doggedly ahead. The corporate takeover was complete by the 2000s, if not before W, then certainly after. Chris is too right in calling this out. The irony is that the right had their program out in the open all this time. They never hid anything, and were never delicate or thoughtful about it. We could see them miles off, and they walked right over everyone.
Excellent article.
Scary intimidation.
The only hope I can see is #Kennedy24 but they'll probably assassinate him soon.
We're doomed.