Dumber than a sack full of hammers

I've talked about the USA a lot in earlier posts: Amerikaemia, Lessons From Easter Island and Turning Points. Why am I so concerned about one country when there are other places facing threats to democracy or have autocratic rulers or are religiously bigoted? The reason is that, apart from the USA potentially ticking all of those boxes, it has inserted itself into the world as the upholder of certain standards whether the world likes it or not. That combined with its military power and cultural influence means the question is: how can you not be concerned about them? Like it or not, they have created the western power structure that the world lives under. Most of the antagonism in the world is directly attributable to the attitude of the USA towards economic systems (communism), religion (Islam) and the division of the world into have and have nots (first vs third world). If you want to comply with their standards you are welcome into the club, if not they know where you live.

All of this could be acceptable if the USA itself wasn’t such a hypocritical cot case. Consider the war in the Ukraine, and disclaimer before I start I’m not apologising for Putin – he is an evil narcissistic sociopath that has to be stopped – but this is to show that hypocrisy at this level needs to be called out whenever it rears its ugly head. Picture this: specific country has considerable wealth and is strategically important. Greedy larger country wants unlimited access to specific country’s wealth but doesn’t want to worry about negotiating terms and conditions so it invents some disinformation to justify a military invasion so it can steal said wealth and seize the desirable strategic advantage. Sounds like Putin with Ukraine right, but I was actually referring to the US invasion of Iraq in the ‘war against terror’ twenty years earlier. That is all conveniently forgotten in the current climate. We don’t want no arrest warrants for war criminality issued to any former US presidents now do we?

All the buffoonery and toxicity of Trump has brought the role of the US even more into the spotlight. Assuming it is going to be the world’s sheriff (and who is big enough to argue), what laws is it going to be upholding and who is going to make them? If they can’t get their own shit together how can you take them seriously when they come kicking down your door to put your house in order?

This could potentially be a massive post, but in the interest of time I’ll try and summarise the state of America and how it has no right to be talking down to anyone, anywhere at any time.

The USA has a polarized political system that splits the population roughly down the middle so that each time they have an election the winner is determined by a few thousand votes in a handful of states. How that is democratic is anyone’s guess because it puts ultimate power in the hands of a few undecided John and Jane Does that have no mandate or qualification to determine the fate of the world. The rest of them stick to their guns (literally) with no hope of ever sharing common ground.

On the left, in the blue corner, you have the disparate bunch of ‘progressives’ that like to kid themselves that they are outward thinking and leading the rest of the world with their staggering foresight and liberty. In their dreams. They at least walk the talk a little bit when it comes to living up to the American hype, so you can give them points for trying. On the right, in the red corner, you have a brainwashed, backward looking, subservient, gullible bunch of flag waving sheep that will kill to maintain a status quo that doesn’t exist anymore, and who accept the word of their religious and political leaders unconditionally because they are brought up from day one to follow instructions and reject knowledge. Knowledge is for the people they place their faith in. Education is a tool of the devil. Education leads to questions, which leads to change, which is unacceptable when you have a bible that tells you how things have to be now and forever. That’s how Trump can still command about 45% of the vote, even though polling suggests half of them don’t like him, but they still aren’t concerned about the implications of voting for him. My granddaddy was a Republican, my daddy was a Republican, so gosh darn it I’m a Republican no matter what. As one of their favourite movie characters says: stupid is a stupid does.

Then you add in the credulousness when it comes to fairy stories like the American Dream, that tells them that life can be perfect and anyone can make it big if they give it a shot. Living that dream applies to about 0.1% of the population, but it’s constantly reinforced by Hollywood fantasies that also set them up for the dark side of this whole blind acceptance – conspiracy theories that suggest organised dark forces are at work, preying on them and undermining their way of life. So you get millions of people that believe The Matrix was a documentary and Q-Anon is the only source of truth. That’s how someone as shallow, self-centred and dishonest as Trump can be elevated to cult status and be viewed as some kind of messiah in some corners, because those that buy into it are accepting the fantasy, not the reality. Reality doesn’t have a shot in a culture like that. Reality isn’t heroic. It doesn’t have good guys and bad guys. Reality is dull. Reality is also hard to deal with because it ultimately exposes the big lies they are living under.

Sounds mad right, but it doesn’t stop there. The real kicker is the cultural hypocrisy that allows at least half the population to accept mentally deranged teenagers running around with military styled assault rifles shooting school kids as a ‘fact of life’, then at (literally) the same time swallowing and being outraged by a fake story about Haitian immigrants barbequing cats. Hypocrisy is so ingrained it doesn’t even register. So you get politicians that commit egregious acts then project it onto the other side. You get religious leaders that preach hatred and division. You get absurd wealth paying to influence democracy. You get criminal wars masquerading as police actions, and you keep races partitioned off in ingrained poverty in the land of freedom and liberty for all, and NONE OF THIS is questioned in any meaningful way. And if you are brave enough to bring it up, then you must be ONE OF THEM GODDAM (fill in derogatory stereotype of choice from the list: commies, pinkos, fags, muslims, yankees, democrats, etc etc).

The problem is the USA is too big and diverse, and has too much to lose to act as a unified country. It is really 50 different countries all pretending to act as one. Much as I loath her, Marjorie Taylor Greene will probably get her wish of a ‘national divorce’ by the time she shuffles off into the sunset. The madness is just unsustainable.

Genuine: The Opposite of Fake

 The word fake gets chucked around a lot. With AI becoming more of a thing, fakes are a growing industry, especially how it applies to the media. The term ‘fake news’ gets thrown around a lot, usually by the people who are telling the lies and don’t like them getting exposed. While most accusations of fakeness are hollow projections, it is fair to say that mainstream media does leave a lot to be desired in terms of integrity. There is either a desperate attempt to stay neutral, in which case the stories they produce are toothless and leave too much to the reader to sort out for themselves, or they are slaves to a corporate commercial agenda that is more concerned about ratings and traffic than maintaining journalistic integrity.

For this post I thought I would promote lower scale media channels that focus on bringing honesty to political reporting. This is particularly important in the run up to the US elections which are only a few weeks away. Those are the most consequential elections of the century so far, for all the wrong reasons. The world is at an inflection point, where unpopular right wing politicians are realising that their approach is heading for the tar pits of history and they need to find away to avoid that annoying democratic process that they are tied to. This US election is not so much about which party wins as about a vote for democracy itself. Now democracy isn’t perfect, but it is still preferable to having some demented narcissistic sociopath imposing his will on the most powerful country in the world whether they like it or not. The podcasters I am about to highlight understand the threat to democracy, understand the bullshit approach of mainstream media and aim to present that rare thing: reality. Even though it’s an old fashioned word I’m gong to describe them as genuine media. As in not fake. As in honest. As in reliable.

Meidas Touch Network

Probably the most well known and comprehensive, the Meidas Touch Network has grown from its initial living room podcast to having more than 3 million subscribers and being name checked on 60 Minutes. Ben Meiselas is the lead podcaster but there is also the offshoot Legal AF with Michael Pocock for amateur legal geeks to dive into. Highlighting political hypocrisy and the negligence of commercial media when it comes to exposing misinformation and deceit, these guys are both brutally honest and hilarious. Fact checking is their strong point and they are able to source up some stories that few others would go near, like just how close were Trump and Jeffrey Epstein? With a growing reach they are the right wing’s worst nightmare.

Bryan Tyler Cohen

Meidas Touch are the right wing’s worst nightmare with one possible exception: Bryan Tyler Cohen. Brian is my favourite political commentator. Not just brutally, but savagely honest his sarcasm is a more deadly weapon than any AR15. If you are looking for razor sharp humour look no further. But Brian isn’t just a joker – although he knows that nothing hurts a puffed up, pretentious politician more than being laughed at – but he is also searingly honest when it comes to reporting the facts behind the spin. Piers Morgan foolishly invited him on as a panelist recently and instantly regretted it. As a bonus value add, Brian also hosts spin off podcasts The Legal Breakdown with Glen Kirschner and Democracy Watch with Marc Elias. Both are a lot more serious, but they hit the honesty button hard and you won’t find anything that cuts through the BS harder.

David Pakman

Moving away from the more aggressive approach of Brian and Ben, David Packman has carved a niche as a commentator that likes to present a fair assessment of political crud. In other words David tries to be more balanced, while still exposing the constant hypocrisy and misinformation that runs rampant through US politics. Sometimes his desire to be fair can be a little bit irritating when you know he is dealing with obvious bullshit, but on the whole he treats his topics with integrity and you have to admire him for that. The fact that he gets so much hate mail proves that he is hitting nerves with the right wingers in his audience, but it also proves that they are watching him, which is important when it comes to breaking down silos. His real time fact checking and the way he laughs when Trump speaks is reason enough to watch him.

The Young Turks

Taking David Packman’s balanced approach a step further, but turning it on its head so they hold no one sacred are TYT. Very experienced, with more than ten years under their belt, they are a lot more politically aggressive, to the extent that host Cenk Uygur stood as a Democrat presidential candidate in the primaries. He obviously got nowhere but he proved he means business. Another one of Piers Morgan’s panelists that he must have later regretted, Cenk has a booming voice and a bear-like sense of humour. His co-hosts on the network support the overall approach to find the nastiest political crap they can and expose it. Possibly dealing more in outrage than I’m comfortable with, they are still one million times less strident than political propagandists like Fox etc. Equally at home exposing the madness of Q-Anon as they are looking under the hood of the GOP and Democrats they are challenging and great if you are in the mood to kick some shit.

Pondering Politics

Jessiah Eberlan is the host here. Bit more of a slow burn than the previous podcasters, it took me longer to get into his more low key approach, but once you get to know his style he is the equal of Packman when it comes to keeping emotion out of his analysis and zooming in on the nitty gritty.

Luke Beasley

Also a bit more low key, but more prone to letting emotion out in his presentation, Luke is notable for actually getting out into the field and interviewing political nutters, fascists and conspiracy theorists to see what makes them tick. This is an especially brave thing to do in the current powder keg of US politics. How he hasn’t been assaulted yet is beyond me, especially when he seems to embody everything these people hate.

The Damage Report

Another network operating like Meidas Touch with guest presenters and side slots. Their Garbage People of the Week is always a laugh and shines the light on some lesser know political freaks. Operating in a space between Meidas Touch and Brian Tyler Cohen they are well worth the clicks.

The Dollemore Daily

Jesse Dollemore is a former marine with a big laugh and an open approach that encourages contact with his audience. This is a risky practice as he has been on the receiving end of some horrific abuse, but he keeps laughing at the haters and exposing their stupidity. The fact that he is an ex-serviceman gives him the credibility to get away with commentary that others can’t, and it seems to pull in more right wingers to his audience, for better or worse. His recent coverage of Trump’s Arlington Cemetery stunt is a must see.

Honourable mention also goes to Adam Mockler, Farron Balanced and Keith Edwards for their podcasts that cover similar ground to the Meidas Touch but without the numbers, although all of them are growing. More power to them – the world needs as many clear voices as it can get at the moment. It’s fair to say that none of these media channels would be anywhere near as popular if it wasn’t for Trump and the right wing in general, but that’s the natural process of restoring balance. The world has to wake up to the existential threat posed by the retrogressive, corrupt, hypocritical and downright retarded right wing view of the world and its enabler, organised religion. And that’s where we are going next.

Gimme OUTRAGE!

Dear reader – you don’t know what you’re talking about. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. We are all victims of a media environment that favours sensationalism and opinion ahead of facts and analysis. Why? Because sensationalism sells and facts are boring. The commercial reality of running a publication means you need paying subscribers to cover your costs and return a dividend. Being relevant and interesting isn’t enough. You need to dive into psychology to get the real returns.

Back in the mid-20^th Century, B.F. Skinner ran a series of experiments involving rats and pigeons that would probably fail today’s ethical standards, but which are landmarks in behavioural psychology. He found the link between mental stimulation and physical reward is the most important driver of behaviour. His lab animals responded to flashing lights and sounds when they performed certain behaviors like pecking coloured dots or pushing buttons. The action was rewarded by a treat or even direct stimulation of the pleasure centres in their brains.

Humans work the same, but what Skinner couldn’t see was the link between hormones and the physical action. In humans the buzz we get from adrenaline and other hormones is a powerful motivating force. Think sex, sport, music, sky diving – whatever turns you on basically. The same with stress – it produces a similar buzz as your body reacts by readying you for fight or flight. That’s the one that media operatives have homed in on to drive the copy sales and clicks.

What is your reaction when you read a page of text outlining a series of facts and scholarly analysis of a specific issue? Boredom at best, right? You want to skip to the click bait with the half naked people or jump to the sports section. Most of us don’t even get past the headline.

In the 1970s Rupert Murdoch and others were cynical enough to start deliberately manipulating their readers by running headlines that not only jumped out at you to grab your attention, but covered topics that people were most likely to get off on. Mostly sex, but also political scandals, celebrity gossip and all the rest we are now surrounded by every minute of the day. They got people hooked, and those publishers made a gazillion out of it.

It would be innocent enough if they had just stuck with the titillation, but the problem was that a lot of these publishers were running a strict political agenda as well. Almost always right wing and focused on exploiting people’s fears of all the various isms, xenophobia, big brother, conspiracies and all the other juicy stuff you can’t see but love to think is real. It has now developed to the point where people can be manipulated in close to real time. You don’t even need words now – just a bunch of angry emojis in the comments is enough to rile people up.

It's all down to the buzz people get from outrage. Outrage gets people going like nothing else. That feeling that you have the righteous justification to take action and crush the forces of evil. You are your own superhero. The problem is that you actually become the force of evil when there is no reality behind it. You are promoting the lie, building the conspiracy, breathing life into the zombie apocalypse.

Despite the obvious danger, right wing media like Fox, Newsmax etc are now competing with each other to see who can pump out the most outrageous shit to their adrenaline junkie audiences. They can hear the howl every time they open the juicy headline and the watch the angry cable presenters personifying OUTRAGE! Then it is picked up by their competitors and amplified so that the howl becomes a ROAR and people start getting motivated to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Whatever it is. Look at January 6^th 2021 for a direct link between the hysteria in social media and an attempted coup based on … absolutely nothing other than feelings, conspiracies and outright lies.

Who cares about the facts – facts are for geeks and wimps and they are probably made up by the ‘enemy’ anyway, right? All those lefty academics that want to destroy our way of life with their science and global thinking. The audience are the true believers, they are getting the skinny on the scams, they are the militia, the forces for good, the real patriots.

Yes folks, it is a cluster fuck of hatred for profit, but we haven’t even got to the kicker yet. The kicker is that the right wing media companies fueling the outrage machine don’t even believe the stuff they are pumping out. They see their viewers as easy marks to drive their profits and run with the anger that will build into the next round of action and reaction. When Fox was sued by Dominion Software the texts that were exposed during discovery exposed what their beloved presenters REALLY thought about their audience. Something about their audience being like domestic terrorists that fuck their mothers or something along those lines. Look it up – it's online. Most of those cable presenters are more like actors, putting on the faux outrage for the bucks it pulls in. Someone like Tucker Carlson has a background of privilege and education. His pose as the voice of the grass roots real America is as fake as his devotion to the right wing cause. Sure he’s a Republican, but he can’t stand Trump. They just have a symbiotic relationship that satisfies their desire for wealth and power through maintaining the hysteria of OUTRAGE!

For a couple of glaring example of this whole phenomenon, look no further than these. Firstly, the assassination attempt on Trump. When that happened everyone was expecting the shooter to be a deranged left wing vigilante taking out the criminal candidate, like Spiderman with a sniper rifle. I was expecting it to spark a right wing feeding frenzy with riots and militia reprisals across the states snowballing into the much drooled over (in right wing media) civil war. But no. Turns out the kid at the centre of it came from a hardcore Trump loving, gun toting family and himself was noted for his conservatism by his classmates. On top of that, he had a hit list of potential targets that included the Democratic National Convention and any foreign visitor that came within range. Trump just happened to be first and closest. Once that came out officially, the story faded away like gun smoke in a fairground. There wasn’t sufficient OUTRAGE to continue it, so once the fake ear bandages at the Republican National Convention came off, so did the story. But you can bet it will be in the back pocket for future disinformation support. It’s too good an opportunity to let die completely.

Second example comes from Britain – the home of tabloid OUTRAGE and manipulation. When another deranged kid went on a stabbing spree at a pre-school dance class, disinformation that the attacker was an illegal immigrant was picked up in social media and amplified by various ‘news’ websites leading to riots in the streets and a fiery attack on an accommodation centre housing refugees. Turns out the kid was from Wales, but by then the damage had been done and the hydra was out of its cage, living on OUTRAGE and fueled by lies that weirdly originated in Pakistan!

Unfortunately, gentle reader, there is nothing that can be done about this. The shit is so many layers deep that it will take generations to undo, even if there is a will to do it. This is how civilizations die. You can choose whether to help or hinder. This post isn’t going to give any easy way out – that is up to you, but as a starter I’d suggest taking a deep breath before you open any juicy headlines and to keep that breathing up when you feel the outrage start to flow. Altogether now – deep into your lungs, calm and even. That’s it. Now start thinking instead. As P-Funk say: it ain’t illegal yet.

A week is a long time

 

Has it really been two years? My little guys thought it was a week. Well, it was for them but with the relativity of time and gravity and all it soon added up back on Earth. You see they were very concerned about the way things were going on their favourite planet, so they took time out for a planning retreat. You know - the sort of thing big corporates and government departments do to concentrate on the big issues. Luxury, out of the way location, lots of nice catering, team building, design sprints and focus groups. Yada yada. For my little guys it was a seven day road trip around a couple of constellations and back, toting a slightly different approach on return.

We’ve said this before, but playing a song isn’t going to change the world. And at this point in time, the world is changing in ways that are well beyond the scope of music to effect. Taylor Swift aside, (but with her I suspect it’s more the football and the social media influencing than the music) socio-political ra-ra set to a beat is going to achieve jack. It’s like it was 50+ years ago when the kids thought that wearing flowers in their hair was going to stop LBJ shipping them off to die in the jungle. When you are facing impossible odds you need to beat it back to the barracks and get back to basics.

Not to put too fine a point on it, the human race is fucked. Covid gave everyone the sign that we were heading up Shit Creek and no one could agree on the design for the paddle, much less agree on how to use it. In the face of a common threat everyone started acting more selfishly than ever, especially those with the power to make the big decisions. Then you get past the microbe threat and you dive into the ego threat from the same narcissistic politicians, one after the other – first Trump, then Putin, then Netanyahu, then whatever is next down the pipe. Couple that with the ongoing climate threat and it is enough to make one feel a little insignificant and powerless. Hence the need for a massive reset.

Music is never going to be far away because it helps to keep you sane, but this blog is going to focus on some bigger picture stuff for a while. The big stuff is where the roots to the problems lie, and a lot of the big stuff is maintained by total blind acceptance. That’s where we come in as individuals. It’s time to channel our inner three year old and start asking, WHY? That’s something your average corporate retreat does, but they limit it to five whys then you should know where to go. If only it was that simple. We are not going to limit it. You keep asking why until the people who are trying to keep you brainwashed and submissive run out of the easy answers, and if they resort to the frustrated parent’s response of “because I say so” then you know you are winning. You can’t have much of a coup / war / fascist repression if no one shows up.

Stick with us. We will still be linking it back to music, but the time has come to turn it off and turn it back on again.