Correction: changed "ham radio" to "pirate radio," apologies for the error! And thanks for ham radio enthusiasts for explaining the distinction in the comments.
I for one am not interested in conspiracy theories and while I was aware somehow that there was this Candace person and it somehow involved Erika Kirk, I have not followed it. I am not interested in “personalities”. That is my solution to nonsense.
X is not where most Americans live. Maybe it’s a place for younger people? Idk, I’m no longer young. But I find that mostly I get pretty good stuff in my X feed.
Because I follow sane, moral people. And I’m not on it that often. When I’m out and about speaking with people, they are blissfully unaware of current conspiracy theories of any kind. It’s great.
Candace is also more powerful than she ever has been (she is fusing the anti Israel government on the left with the antisemites on the right line Nick Fuentes)… you are stupid to be so naive
Try 30%. Apparently you haven’t been paying attention to the infighting going on in the conservative coalition. There is a reason even Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling Trump a non Christian, non conservative, amongst other things and leaving Congress. Also why Dems are over performing in elections 🤣🤣🤣
Their OBP is higher than usual the past decade or so. But the Left has been supplying a lot of juice during the same period. So... pinch o' salt...or, to stick with the baseball analogies, an asterisk. The hits are real, but they've been getting a lot of "help."
Name several. I would like to know about them and how they were proven to not be true. Not trying to be provocative, just truly don't know. I think both Meta and Twitter (X) formerly tried to screen out nonsense and conspiracy falsehoods. The challenge is sometimes the screeners are also biased. Who is going to check up on them? Meta said they would let the community decide; got rid of their screeners, but that doesn't work either. X i.e., Musk ,the boss of X, wanted a free forum. Look what we got. I am interested in ideas for solution to this dilemma from readers.
Another aspect of truth/false info in scientific information--New knowledge may negate what formerly seemed the best approach. Example: Fats are bad for you. All oils are fats but are not the same. Olive oil may be the best for health (or least that is current thinking) but too much of that leads to excessive calories, not good for excessive weight gain, which is bad. It is complicated and cannot be oversimplified which may make it easier to become 'conspiracy.'
Anything can be bad when taken in abundance. However, sugar is poison and is in almost every American grocery product, from catsup to salad dressing to vitamins to pasta sauce. If you extract sugar from food products, then it might not be so bad. But it’s everywhere. Read labels. Ditch sugar. Use natural substitutes.
Nicotine doesn’t equal smoke. There are many studies that show the positive impact of tobacco/nicotine on myriad health issues. (There are some studies that show smoking chemical-free cigarettes can be beneficial to one’s health)
New studies show unvaccinated children have much better health outcomes than vaccinated children.
Natural fats are much better for you than synthetic, overly processed fats, which are essentially poison.
Heart disease is a result of inflammation, not cholesterol (cholesterol blocks passage ways when inflamed. When there is no inflammation, cholesterol is not an issue).
There’s more, but I really don’t have time.
Best of luck to you…you will need to do your own homework going forward.
Thanks, theres are absolute statements and most are not absolute one way or the other, not black/white. There are pluses and minuses for truth/falsehood for many. They are more nuanced than the flat statements and most also take some scientific knowledge to sort that one way or the other. Except for tobacco, most of the above might depend. I don't know any positives for tobacco smoke and other ingredients in cigarettes in the lungs over a period of time. For example, a small amount of simple carbohydrates won't kill you but are not good for you either. Don't know if there is anything good about smoke in the lungs. On a harm/help ratio, childhood vaccines have advantages on a population basis but there are likely individual cases where there is harm in small numbers. The challenge is to sort out when positive effects outweigh negative on a population basis. Conspiracy is often black/white. Real life often isn't.
The NYT’s recent editorial moderation occurred only because management finally realized “the jig is up,” i.e., their journalistic bias has been a hot mess and we have the receipts to prove it. The pendulum calls the tune, and it’s time The Old Gray Lady took a seat and tended to her self-inflicted wounds.
Trump is successfully instituting censorship with his lawsuits. Examples, ABC and Stephanopolis, CBS and Colbert, 60 minutes, and now BBC. This has to stop.
That's not censorship; it's market force deciding what networks and nitwits get a voice. He's suing them with his own money. They have a choice; report or manipulate. One is more expensive than the other. They are perfectly free to keep up with their nonsense. It's a cost/benefit calculation. He's just making sure they pay for the privilege of propagandizing when he's in their crosshairs. You know, "their fair share."
Yes it is censorship. A 10 BILLION lawsuit! What? BTW where and how did he get that money to sue them? How did his position as POTUS to earn that money? "Report or manipulate" What does that mean? Capitualte? I don't understand and think I don't agree because I don't understand your point.
Trump doesn't take a salary. He hasn't gotten rich through government sinecure, like a certain insider trading Speaker of the House (thankfully, retired). You may recall, Trump was featured in many rappers' lyrics long before he came down the escalator. Because he was already wealthy. I don't doubt that you don't understand a lot of things, Elizabeth. And that is almost certainly why you think you disagree.
As another commenter has wisely pointed out, libel and slander are illegal. If he sued and won a judgment against them, it doesn't matter how big it is. The weren't censored. They were found guilty of libel or slander, and Trump's legal team convinced a court (and likely a jury) of their case against the defendant. That isn't censorship.
It's not like he was colluding with Twitter or Facebook through agencies he (ostensibly) controls to ban or suppress speech. You know..ACTUAL censorship (by proxy, but if the CIA or NSA or FBI are "suggesting" your platform ban or suppress certain accounts, like they did with Trump and many others)...you tend to go along.
The 10 billion number is what lawyers do - shoot for the highest number without expecting it. It should be noted that the BBC committed an outright act of fraud in their editing because it has belligerent anti-Trump bias. And this has been inflicted on millions of listeners/views worldwide. Then we have the question of election interference and that very British Steele dossier which enacted a long psyop on America. Now think about the EU's Digital Services Act which our cousins across the pond kind of like. It's similar to Chinese style censorship - and it applies to anything we create here in America that goes there. Do you still think the lawsuit is outrageous?
Elizabeth, I think you have your head buried in the sand either purposefully or in ignorance. Trump is rooting out the propaganda from all of your examples. You should expand the scope of your informational sources.
Thousands of victims of grooming gangs or detransitioning transgenders don't have the billions to sue BBC for their silence despite so maany people trying to get this publicly funded outfit to give them voice, so if Trump forces them to be professional, I am OK with that. Much like I hope that Bridget Macron will shut down Candace Owens, which would help her other victims.
Please don't let the NYT off the hook for the large part they played in Russiagate and Hillary's unsecured server. Jeff Gerth did a great four part series for the Columbia Journalism Review, The Press Vs the President, which gives great insight into NYT's shameful covering of those incidents. I'm a conservative and not one bit influenced by Candace Owens and rarely glance at X.
The hard truth is that human independent-mindedness is the exception, not the norm. Most people are moral/philosophical sheep....always have been and always will. Left, right and centre.
'I came across a book recently by philosopher Richard Rorty published in 1989. It is about the importance of stories to the human psyche....to how we make sense of our lives. In a nutshell – contrary to the Enlightenment Age of Reason paradigm of reality constructed from tools of logic and analysis – most people in fact, piece together their big picture of reality in large measure from stories they have heard or read or made up in their own heads.' [ https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west ]
All of us alive today have lived in the time of a great media-driven - Western narrative of "'social justice' to be brought about by 'politics'". It has always been bogus and may well get supplanted in the not-too-distant future by some new hegemonic narrative. Which the vast majority of people will then follow, just as they did the last one.
Graham, please consider that the American revolution was fought for a new form of social justice that was very much the foment of political influence. after securing independence from Britain, we governed ourselves via the first ever example of self-government where reduced to practical application aligned to the writings of great political thinkers of the previous century. these visionary men had equally been students of the greatest philosophical minds of the ancient ages.
this body of knowledge was learned from books and liberal education, and in contravention to their observed form of government they saw all around them, through their non-lying eyes.
to view your fellow citizens as dominantly incapable of independent and cogent thoughtfulness, is what has driven the politics of Progressives for the last ~125 years, these are the people that have determined that the average person is incapable of governing themselves and are not to be trusted with too much freedom.
There is no such thing as social justice....not an American kind or a British kind or any other kind. 'Social justice' is a mind-game played by a mostly college grad middle class to make themselves feel virtuous. There are unchanging human qualities...there is generosity and there is meanness; there is honesty and there is dissembling fakery. No virtue-signalling political meddling is going to fundamentally change those facts of life.
No, that is as bleak as the tundra. Activists for social justice today have besmirched the ideals of the great reformers of the past. Social justice has a place in society, as does religion. The problem comes about when the reach of the state over extends.
Yes I didn't mean anything bleak.... just that an increase in the sum total of human fellow feeling cannot be manufactured by social engineering politics.
Graham…redefining the words someone chooses so that they can be used as a cudgel within your own narrative, seems very much what the left has tried to do to the language for some time now.
if I had wrote “more perfect union” in lieu of “social justice” would that have been ok with you?
I hope you will accept that I was doing no redefining nor any cudgelling. The phrase 'social justice' has long since come to be a short hand for the whole leftist 'progressive' project that the Western world has been afflicted by this past half century. Eg. SJW (social justice warrior)
Social Justice= Social Activism, whether you want it or Agree with it. Time to put such nonsense on the trash heap, replace it with honesty,integrity and moral clarity found in biblical principles. I.E- Judeo-Christian Values America was founded on
I think that's a candid and accurate assessment even if too painful for a lot of people to stomach. On the other hand, has it been rather miraculous that the American experiment has yielded rather impressive though not perfect results out of this herd of sheep? While I share your assessment that the sheep would not suddenly wake up and turn into Leonardo da Vinci, I do believe that another chapter of American experiment could be written today and in the future.
Thank you Yan Song. Given what you say, I think you would find much more that would chime with your own thoughts in the essay series on https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/
Great comment. Here in NZ our media take their cue from the BBC, NY Times, AP and Washington Post. The occasional few minutes of reality (I just saw an episode of Landman) are so welcome.
I actually used to do that but for the most part gave up on both except for the very centrist straight up Fox anchors like Bret Baier. Formerly used NPR, NYT, WP but they are all now just singing from the Democrat hymnal, you don't even get a side, you get political psyops. Now read almost exclusively independant voices because they are an unfiltered telling of reality and provide real journalism, also sources like Firstpost India which has no US political bias. I feel sorry for mainstream news consumers as they're fed a constant, well crafted and scripted narrative to manipulate, not inform. This is how we get the mass formation psychosis we saw with COVID and are still seeing with Trump and Republicans in general. A complete and total inversion of the truth.
Used to be that the WSJ was a reliable news source and had a reliably right of center Editorial Board. But that ship has sunk too. DJT’s first election, the Covid Mess, BLM and finally DJT’s second election have permanently destroyed the mental state of the news division. It now is indistinguishable from the NYT. The EB has also lost its way. It is reflexively opposed to Trump, axiomatically opposed to tariffs and regularly flirts with the Climate Idiocracy. I stuck with them for a while thinking they might right the ship, but I’ve given up. So, X and Substack it is.
You’re correct about the WSJ. Had it for over 40 years and it’s no better than the NYT pushing narratives and outright lies and ignoring 100% things like Artic Frost or any of the revelations that Tulsi Gabbard made regarding Russiagate etc. the Murdoch boys are in operational control now and they are destroying its credibility
I think at this point that the Murdoch boys have succeeded in destroying the WSJ’s credibility. Wish there was a way to expel them from the WSJ and Fox. They are unfit. Some of the EB actually look like they’re making hostage videos.
Christopher, how you overlook the obvious. A better apples-to-apples comparison is the New York Times and the New York Post. Consider Hunter’s laptop. One organization pretended, without any solid information, the device was a product of Russia Disinformation Incorporated. The other organization went to the mat researching, printing, and defending the story. One paper persuaded, the other educated. Most NYT staff are not dumb; they can find and disseminate the facts when they choose to do so. Only then can NYT be credited with “educating” the readership.
This week, Candace Owens met with Erika Kirk for a 4 1/2 hour, very productive meeting, which included lawyers.
Now Candace has greatly softened her resolve on certain conspiracy aspects, prompting an immediate and angry backlash in her comments section. Are these bots or legitimate people?
Well, we'll see how long Candace cools off with her momentous rhetoric on the Charlie Kirk conspiracy.
I like the idea that X does actually pay, but I hate the idea that bots are influencing view counts and click counts. Definitely get rid of the bots.
Absolutely bots need to go. I would also like to see a disclaimer on both TikTok, X and all the social media for posts--something like "Paid for by XXX" same as for political ads.
The 4.5 hours private meeting on Monday was not streamed, not online. Candace told her audience about it on her very next podcast, which was yesterday, 16 December. I actually waited for the Tim Pool reporting and selected clips, on his Tuesday PM Timcast IRL episode.
Please share with us what the new Candace position is? I saw something on X last night where she seemed to be claiming that Charlie Kirk really had told someone "they are going to kill me" the night before his murder. This would be relevant as Rufo's argument seems to be that the alleged shooter was a lone assassin and not part of a conspiracy. But "they" implies a group. And many seemed to have known in advance of the murder. Maybe this really hinges on whether elite organisations really do find patsies to do their dirty work. Is that a conspiracy theory or how they really work? IDK
The amount of class interest and irrational, emotionalized ‘word spells’ on the left cannot be overstated. If you peel back the beliefs of a progressive you often find an insecure, educated person who believes they’re better informed than they are (we all do) and who wants to feel like a kind, selfless person… without actually doing or sacrificing anything.
The brittle insecurity of the worldview and the remove most believers enjoy from crime or war or poverty are both vulnerabilities which can be exploited in debates and discussions.
The problem is "conspiracy theory" is also a 'word spell'. It is used to stop questioning of promoted narratives. And Rufo seems to be trying to use that 'word spell' in this essay to stop the questioning of the Charlie Kirk assassination narrative being pushed on us.
If you go back in time before mass media like radio and Television you will find that every single community had two newspapers one that reported the news favorably to democrats and one the reported the news favorably to republicans. The rise of mass media and the federal government’s artificial limits created monopolies that were then captured 100% by the left. Who at their peak power ran a President out of office Rush Limbaugh broke their stranglehold on the narrative and the podcast world and outlets like Twitter and Substack have allowed independent journalists to thrive Corporate MSM is dead it just doesn’t realize it yet. There is only one thing that can save it and that’s government subsidies. Congress needs to act now to never ever allow any taxpayer money to flow to any media companies or any NGO who fund media companies.
The term conspiracy theory is a tricky one. I don't think it should be as much of a negative term as it often is. Because doing that discourages critical thinking. Obviously not every theory is true but some are. We should be open to them while demanding sufficient evidence as well.
As always, very good points. That said, your suggestions seem to call for X tweaking its algorithm so some accounts are elevated and others demoted. Essentially, you'd like to see an "editor."
Obviously, some would call that censorship, and, unless he changes his mind, it doesn't fit Musk's vision of X being the "Global Townsquare."
His point is that there’s a sophisticated algorithm behind X, like all social media. It needs tweaking to promote higher quality, higher credibility content, and to demote the bots and the rage peddlers
But someone has to decide what counts as “higher-quality” vs. “rage-bait.”
Even if well-intentioned, doesn’t that become at least a mild form of censorship (the kind you like, but others won’t)?
Musk says he’s tweaking to reduce bots/spam, but he’s also often stated that the algorithm should reflect what people actually engage with, not what gatekeepers think they should see.
I’m still holding onto the old idea that the cure for bad speech is more speech—and Rufo himself is proof that it can work powerfully.
Correction: changed "ham radio" to "pirate radio," apologies for the error! And thanks for ham radio enthusiasts for explaining the distinction in the comments.
I for one am not interested in conspiracy theories and while I was aware somehow that there was this Candace person and it somehow involved Erika Kirk, I have not followed it. I am not interested in “personalities”. That is my solution to nonsense.
Amen
X is not where most Americans live. Maybe it’s a place for younger people? Idk, I’m no longer young. But I find that mostly I get pretty good stuff in my X feed.
Because I follow sane, moral people. And I’m not on it that often. When I’m out and about speaking with people, they are blissfully unaware of current conspiracy theories of any kind. It’s great.
Same here. Doubt that more than 5% of conservatives believe the bull she's spreading. There will always be crazies. She's not important.
Candace is also more powerful than she ever has been (she is fusing the anti Israel government on the left with the antisemites on the right line Nick Fuentes)… you are stupid to be so naive
Try 30%. Apparently you haven’t been paying attention to the infighting going on in the conservative coalition. There is a reason even Marjorie Taylor Greene is calling Trump a non Christian, non conservative, amongst other things and leaving Congress. Also why Dems are over performing in elections 🤣🤣🤣
On the flip side, it is interesting how many of those conspiracy theories have proven to be true (not Candace’s, but in general).
Yeah, I figure conspiracy theorists are batting 1.000.
Their OBP is higher than usual the past decade or so. But the Left has been supplying a lot of juice during the same period. So... pinch o' salt...or, to stick with the baseball analogies, an asterisk. The hits are real, but they've been getting a lot of "help."
how did they get promoted from the bush leagues with that batting average? time to send them back to the farm.
1.000 is a "perfect" batting average.
Like 30 for 30.
But you knew that, right?
Name several. I would like to know about them and how they were proven to not be true. Not trying to be provocative, just truly don't know. I think both Meta and Twitter (X) formerly tried to screen out nonsense and conspiracy falsehoods. The challenge is sometimes the screeners are also biased. Who is going to check up on them? Meta said they would let the community decide; got rid of their screeners, but that doesn't work either. X i.e., Musk ,the boss of X, wanted a free forum. Look what we got. I am interested in ideas for solution to this dilemma from readers.
Covid originated in a wet market
If you take the Covid vaccination, you cannot get Covid nor can you transmit it
The Covid vaccines are safe and effective
If you get the flu vaccine, you can neither get the flu nor transmit it
The government is not spraying aerosols in the air, chem trails are a myth
Childhood vaccines have been tested and are safe and effective
Food dyes are not dangerous
Simple carbohydrates are good for you
Fats are bad for you
Heart disease is caused by excessive fat in a diet, and not sugar
Tobacco/Nicotine is bad for you
Canola oil is good for you
Margarine is safer than butter
I could go on and on and on and on.
Note: The conspiracies are the opposite of what is listed. What I listed are the lies we’ve need told.
Another aspect of truth/false info in scientific information--New knowledge may negate what formerly seemed the best approach. Example: Fats are bad for you. All oils are fats but are not the same. Olive oil may be the best for health (or least that is current thinking) but too much of that leads to excessive calories, not good for excessive weight gain, which is bad. It is complicated and cannot be oversimplified which may make it easier to become 'conspiracy.'
Anything can be bad when taken in abundance. However, sugar is poison and is in almost every American grocery product, from catsup to salad dressing to vitamins to pasta sauce. If you extract sugar from food products, then it might not be so bad. But it’s everywhere. Read labels. Ditch sugar. Use natural substitutes.
Nicotine doesn’t equal smoke. There are many studies that show the positive impact of tobacco/nicotine on myriad health issues. (There are some studies that show smoking chemical-free cigarettes can be beneficial to one’s health)
New studies show unvaccinated children have much better health outcomes than vaccinated children.
Natural fats are much better for you than synthetic, overly processed fats, which are essentially poison.
Heart disease is a result of inflammation, not cholesterol (cholesterol blocks passage ways when inflamed. When there is no inflammation, cholesterol is not an issue).
There’s more, but I really don’t have time.
Best of luck to you…you will need to do your own homework going forward.
See my response to Elizabeth
Just wondering where are the studies of which you speak so condescendingly to me. Your tone doesn’t help us have good discussion.
Thanks, theres are absolute statements and most are not absolute one way or the other, not black/white. There are pluses and minuses for truth/falsehood for many. They are more nuanced than the flat statements and most also take some scientific knowledge to sort that one way or the other. Except for tobacco, most of the above might depend. I don't know any positives for tobacco smoke and other ingredients in cigarettes in the lungs over a period of time. For example, a small amount of simple carbohydrates won't kill you but are not good for you either. Don't know if there is anything good about smoke in the lungs. On a harm/help ratio, childhood vaccines have advantages on a population basis but there are likely individual cases where there is harm in small numbers. The challenge is to sort out when positive effects outweigh negative on a population basis. Conspiracy is often black/white. Real life often isn't.
I happen to agree with everything Nard says...
All seed oils are bad, nothing more than industrial lubricants...
Great as a lubricant, just don't consume any.
Olive and Avocado oils are not seed oils, so good for you.
Butter is fine.
Lard is great
Beef tallow also healthy.
I politely suggest you do some research on seed oils/margarine, and how they are made.
Oh, and don't ask AI...
The NYT’s recent editorial moderation occurred only because management finally realized “the jig is up,” i.e., their journalistic bias has been a hot mess and we have the receipts to prove it. The pendulum calls the tune, and it’s time The Old Gray Lady took a seat and tended to her self-inflicted wounds.
Just curious what is going to happen at BBC after Trump's lawsuit.
Trump is successfully instituting censorship with his lawsuits. Examples, ABC and Stephanopolis, CBS and Colbert, 60 minutes, and now BBC. This has to stop.
That's not censorship; it's market force deciding what networks and nitwits get a voice. He's suing them with his own money. They have a choice; report or manipulate. One is more expensive than the other. They are perfectly free to keep up with their nonsense. It's a cost/benefit calculation. He's just making sure they pay for the privilege of propagandizing when he's in their crosshairs. You know, "their fair share."
Yes it is censorship. A 10 BILLION lawsuit! What? BTW where and how did he get that money to sue them? How did his position as POTUS to earn that money? "Report or manipulate" What does that mean? Capitualte? I don't understand and think I don't agree because I don't understand your point.
Trump doesn't take a salary. He hasn't gotten rich through government sinecure, like a certain insider trading Speaker of the House (thankfully, retired). You may recall, Trump was featured in many rappers' lyrics long before he came down the escalator. Because he was already wealthy. I don't doubt that you don't understand a lot of things, Elizabeth. And that is almost certainly why you think you disagree.
As another commenter has wisely pointed out, libel and slander are illegal. If he sued and won a judgment against them, it doesn't matter how big it is. The weren't censored. They were found guilty of libel or slander, and Trump's legal team convinced a court (and likely a jury) of their case against the defendant. That isn't censorship.
It's not like he was colluding with Twitter or Facebook through agencies he (ostensibly) controls to ban or suppress speech. You know..ACTUAL censorship (by proxy, but if the CIA or NSA or FBI are "suggesting" your platform ban or suppress certain accounts, like they did with Trump and many others)...you tend to go along.
THAT is censorship. Winning in court isn't.
The 10 billion number is what lawyers do - shoot for the highest number without expecting it. It should be noted that the BBC committed an outright act of fraud in their editing because it has belligerent anti-Trump bias. And this has been inflicted on millions of listeners/views worldwide. Then we have the question of election interference and that very British Steele dossier which enacted a long psyop on America. Now think about the EU's Digital Services Act which our cousins across the pond kind of like. It's similar to Chinese style censorship - and it applies to anything we create here in America that goes there. Do you still think the lawsuit is outrageous?
Free speech? What country are you from?
Libel laws are clear, and so are the consequences.
Exactly what was the libel here? Be specific and clear
Read the judgments for yourself. Mitch shouldn't have to do your work for you.
Elizabeth, I think you have your head buried in the sand either purposefully or in ignorance. Trump is rooting out the propaganda from all of your examples. You should expand the scope of your informational sources.
Thousands of victims of grooming gangs or detransitioning transgenders don't have the billions to sue BBC for their silence despite so maany people trying to get this publicly funded outfit to give them voice, so if Trump forces them to be professional, I am OK with that. Much like I hope that Bridget Macron will shut down Candace Owens, which would help her other victims.
I don't get what you are saying. What?
Please don't let the NYT off the hook for the large part they played in Russiagate and Hillary's unsecured server. Jeff Gerth did a great four part series for the Columbia Journalism Review, The Press Vs the President, which gives great insight into NYT's shameful covering of those incidents. I'm a conservative and not one bit influenced by Candace Owens and rarely glance at X.
Good point
The hard truth is that human independent-mindedness is the exception, not the norm. Most people are moral/philosophical sheep....always have been and always will. Left, right and centre.
'I came across a book recently by philosopher Richard Rorty published in 1989. It is about the importance of stories to the human psyche....to how we make sense of our lives. In a nutshell – contrary to the Enlightenment Age of Reason paradigm of reality constructed from tools of logic and analysis – most people in fact, piece together their big picture of reality in large measure from stories they have heard or read or made up in their own heads.' [ https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/once-upon-a-time-in-the-west ]
All of us alive today have lived in the time of a great media-driven - Western narrative of "'social justice' to be brought about by 'politics'". It has always been bogus and may well get supplanted in the not-too-distant future by some new hegemonic narrative. Which the vast majority of people will then follow, just as they did the last one.
Graham, please consider that the American revolution was fought for a new form of social justice that was very much the foment of political influence. after securing independence from Britain, we governed ourselves via the first ever example of self-government where reduced to practical application aligned to the writings of great political thinkers of the previous century. these visionary men had equally been students of the greatest philosophical minds of the ancient ages.
this body of knowledge was learned from books and liberal education, and in contravention to their observed form of government they saw all around them, through their non-lying eyes.
to view your fellow citizens as dominantly incapable of independent and cogent thoughtfulness, is what has driven the politics of Progressives for the last ~125 years, these are the people that have determined that the average person is incapable of governing themselves and are not to be trusted with too much freedom.
There is no such thing as social justice....not an American kind or a British kind or any other kind. 'Social justice' is a mind-game played by a mostly college grad middle class to make themselves feel virtuous. There are unchanging human qualities...there is generosity and there is meanness; there is honesty and there is dissembling fakery. No virtue-signalling political meddling is going to fundamentally change those facts of life.
No, that is as bleak as the tundra. Activists for social justice today have besmirched the ideals of the great reformers of the past. Social justice has a place in society, as does religion. The problem comes about when the reach of the state over extends.
Yes I didn't mean anything bleak.... just that an increase in the sum total of human fellow feeling cannot be manufactured by social engineering politics.
Graham…redefining the words someone chooses so that they can be used as a cudgel within your own narrative, seems very much what the left has tried to do to the language for some time now.
if I had wrote “more perfect union” in lieu of “social justice” would that have been ok with you?
I hope you will accept that I was doing no redefining nor any cudgelling. The phrase 'social justice' has long since come to be a short hand for the whole leftist 'progressive' project that the Western world has been afflicted by this past half century. Eg. SJW (social justice warrior)
Social Justice= Social Activism, whether you want it or Agree with it. Time to put such nonsense on the trash heap, replace it with honesty,integrity and moral clarity found in biblical principles. I.E- Judeo-Christian Values America was founded on
I think that's a candid and accurate assessment even if too painful for a lot of people to stomach. On the other hand, has it been rather miraculous that the American experiment has yielded rather impressive though not perfect results out of this herd of sheep? While I share your assessment that the sheep would not suddenly wake up and turn into Leonardo da Vinci, I do believe that another chapter of American experiment could be written today and in the future.
Thank you Yan Song. Given what you say, I think you would find much more that would chime with your own thoughts in the essay series on https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/
It takes a skill to fish the facts out of propaganda. This is why I go to both Fox News and NYT, to pill the narrative off and get the facts.
Mainstream 'news' media are bad enough....but far more insidious are television (and Hollywood) dramas where race-guilt-tripping and gender-queering is baked into every storyline. Examples: https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/non-binary-sibling-is-entertaining
Great comment. Here in NZ our media take their cue from the BBC, NY Times, AP and Washington Post. The occasional few minutes of reality (I just saw an episode of Landman) are so welcome.
Thank you
I actually used to do that but for the most part gave up on both except for the very centrist straight up Fox anchors like Bret Baier. Formerly used NPR, NYT, WP but they are all now just singing from the Democrat hymnal, you don't even get a side, you get political psyops. Now read almost exclusively independant voices because they are an unfiltered telling of reality and provide real journalism, also sources like Firstpost India which has no US political bias. I feel sorry for mainstream news consumers as they're fed a constant, well crafted and scripted narrative to manipulate, not inform. This is how we get the mass formation psychosis we saw with COVID and are still seeing with Trump and Republicans in general. A complete and total inversion of the truth.
Used to be that the WSJ was a reliable news source and had a reliably right of center Editorial Board. But that ship has sunk too. DJT’s first election, the Covid Mess, BLM and finally DJT’s second election have permanently destroyed the mental state of the news division. It now is indistinguishable from the NYT. The EB has also lost its way. It is reflexively opposed to Trump, axiomatically opposed to tariffs and regularly flirts with the Climate Idiocracy. I stuck with them for a while thinking they might right the ship, but I’ve given up. So, X and Substack it is.
You’re correct about the WSJ. Had it for over 40 years and it’s no better than the NYT pushing narratives and outright lies and ignoring 100% things like Artic Frost or any of the revelations that Tulsi Gabbard made regarding Russiagate etc. the Murdoch boys are in operational control now and they are destroying its credibility
I think at this point that the Murdoch boys have succeeded in destroying the WSJ’s credibility. Wish there was a way to expel them from the WSJ and Fox. They are unfit. Some of the EB actually look like they’re making hostage videos.
"sunk" not sailed is just exactly correct 💯
Christopher, how you overlook the obvious. A better apples-to-apples comparison is the New York Times and the New York Post. Consider Hunter’s laptop. One organization pretended, without any solid information, the device was a product of Russia Disinformation Incorporated. The other organization went to the mat researching, printing, and defending the story. One paper persuaded, the other educated. Most NYT staff are not dumb; they can find and disseminate the facts when they choose to do so. Only then can NYT be credited with “educating” the readership.
AWG nailed it!
This week, Candace Owens met with Erika Kirk for a 4 1/2 hour, very productive meeting, which included lawyers.
Now Candace has greatly softened her resolve on certain conspiracy aspects, prompting an immediate and angry backlash in her comments section. Are these bots or legitimate people?
Well, we'll see how long Candace cools off with her momentous rhetoric on the Charlie Kirk conspiracy.
I like the idea that X does actually pay, but I hate the idea that bots are influencing view counts and click counts. Definitely get rid of the bots.
Bots need to go!
Absolutely bots need to go. I would also like to see a disclaimer on both TikTok, X and all the social media for posts--something like "Paid for by XXX" same as for political ads.
I haven't seen the 4.5 hr Owens/Kirk interview but I was positively impressed with Erika Kirk's responses in the Weiss/Kirk interview on CBS.
I pray that Candice will get back on the rails of reality.
The 4.5 hours private meeting on Monday was not streamed, not online. Candace told her audience about it on her very next podcast, which was yesterday, 16 December. I actually waited for the Tim Pool reporting and selected clips, on his Tuesday PM Timcast IRL episode.
Please share with us what the new Candace position is? I saw something on X last night where she seemed to be claiming that Charlie Kirk really had told someone "they are going to kill me" the night before his murder. This would be relevant as Rufo's argument seems to be that the alleged shooter was a lone assassin and not part of a conspiracy. But "they" implies a group. And many seemed to have known in advance of the murder. Maybe this really hinges on whether elite organisations really do find patsies to do their dirty work. Is that a conspiracy theory or how they really work? IDK
Yes please summarize, Tim's podcast is 1.5 hrs!
The amount of class interest and irrational, emotionalized ‘word spells’ on the left cannot be overstated. If you peel back the beliefs of a progressive you often find an insecure, educated person who believes they’re better informed than they are (we all do) and who wants to feel like a kind, selfless person… without actually doing or sacrificing anything.
The brittle insecurity of the worldview and the remove most believers enjoy from crime or war or poverty are both vulnerabilities which can be exploited in debates and discussions.
https://jmpolemic.substack.com/p/cryptic-evil-and-word-spells
The problem is "conspiracy theory" is also a 'word spell'. It is used to stop questioning of promoted narratives. And Rufo seems to be trying to use that 'word spell' in this essay to stop the questioning of the Charlie Kirk assassination narrative being pushed on us.
wherever did you get the idea that "The purpose of the media is to teach the public how to think"?
I assume he meant "what to think". Already a pessimistic version of "inform objectively".
Very hard to teach people "how to think". That's mostly innate and/or taught at young age.
Amen to that. They have never done that and never will. It was called yellow journalism for a reason.
It's interesting that you never mentioned Tucker Carlson alongside Candice Owens.
If you go back in time before mass media like radio and Television you will find that every single community had two newspapers one that reported the news favorably to democrats and one the reported the news favorably to republicans. The rise of mass media and the federal government’s artificial limits created monopolies that were then captured 100% by the left. Who at their peak power ran a President out of office Rush Limbaugh broke their stranglehold on the narrative and the podcast world and outlets like Twitter and Substack have allowed independent journalists to thrive Corporate MSM is dead it just doesn’t realize it yet. There is only one thing that can save it and that’s government subsidies. Congress needs to act now to never ever allow any taxpayer money to flow to any media companies or any NGO who fund media companies.
Thank Ted Turner, CNN, first cable news, 24 hour "news" cycle kickoff, 1980. Downhill ever since.
No! It is the role of the media to report. Nothing more.
I see the conspiracy purveyors as temporary. We need to distinguish between clicks for laughs and clicks for information.
What people search for is far more important.
The term conspiracy theory is a tricky one. I don't think it should be as much of a negative term as it often is. Because doing that discourages critical thinking. Obviously not every theory is true but some are. We should be open to them while demanding sufficient evidence as well.
As always, very good points. That said, your suggestions seem to call for X tweaking its algorithm so some accounts are elevated and others demoted. Essentially, you'd like to see an "editor."
Obviously, some would call that censorship, and, unless he changes his mind, it doesn't fit Musk's vision of X being the "Global Townsquare."
His point is that there’s a sophisticated algorithm behind X, like all social media. It needs tweaking to promote higher quality, higher credibility content, and to demote the bots and the rage peddlers
All true—every algorithm has biases.
But someone has to decide what counts as “higher-quality” vs. “rage-bait.”
Even if well-intentioned, doesn’t that become at least a mild form of censorship (the kind you like, but others won’t)?
Musk says he’s tweaking to reduce bots/spam, but he’s also often stated that the algorithm should reflect what people actually engage with, not what gatekeepers think they should see.
I’m still holding onto the old idea that the cure for bad speech is more speech—and Rufo himself is proof that it can work powerfully.