Excerpt from The Australian --
"'I am now very pessimistic,' Haidt said. 'I think there is a very good chance American democracy will fail, that in the next 30 years we will have a catastrophic failure of our democracy.'"
Why would Jonathan Haidt be so full of doom and Gloom. Maybe because of the dozens of cases of Woke malfeasance in the science departments of universities, as described by Lawrence Krauss:
Excerpts from a good review of the state of the news media, "Gender and the Media:
"The year 2022 saw some small breaks in the lock step uniformity with which the liberal and moderate conservative media in North America has covered gender medicine. There have been investigative reports and commentaries in the New York Times, the Washington Post and Reuters which discuss detransition and raise concerns about how teens as being given hormones and surgeries without adequate psychological assessment. The transgender activist community is furious and it is encouraging to see that their outrage is, so far, having little effect." . . .
The end game?
Once the media starts to understand the distinction between accepting same sex attraction (the LGB) and denying the material reality of sex (the TQ), the final step is a short one. That is to acknowledge that concern about gender medicine is not simply a right wing talking point and that there is concern at all points on the political spectrum.
From Michael Shellenberger's article: "Why A Shocking Number Of Crazy-Sounding Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories Turned About To Be True."
The World Economic Forum really does exercise a creepy influence over world leaders and it really does want “A Great Reset” whereby we’ll collectively move to living in low-energy, high-density, and low-privacy environments, having less physical wealth and, yes, eating insects for protein instead of meat.
The FBI really did spy on Donald Trump’s campaign, run brief-and-leak operations, and spread misinformation about the extent of Russian election interference in ways that led nearly all of the media, media platforms, and Democrats to believe that Hunter Biden’s laptop was fake and anyone who talked about it is a conspiracy theorist, and in a way that may have constituted election interference.
Facebook and Twitter really did censor accurate covid information at the behest of the White House and Twitter, and operate secret blacklists to censor and deplatform disfavored voices and opinions, even when their own internal teams said the people being censored had not actually broken any of the platform’s rules.
. . .
A growing number of people understand that they must pay for news and information from trustworthy and independent sources, ones without financials conflict of interest, and who make their values and beliefs explicit, rather than hide them. Ultimately, what threatens elites who are abusing their power, from WEF to the FBI to the White House, are not the people selling conspiracy theories but the ones exposing them.
The "news" about COVID and our children. Matt Orfalea's latest mashup about our national hysteria, about the continuing calls to vaccinate and mask 3-year olds. The real stats representing the risks are embedded in this video and they represent a shocking mismatch between reality and the news media portrayal of the risk. See also, Matt Taibbi's added analysis:
Living in America in the last 6-7 years has been like being trapped in a fugue state, where reality is kaleidoscopic, memory is elusive, and moments of clarity sometimes more jarring than reassuring. To be reminded of what we were told day after day for years, after being trained to forget, is like waking from an unpleasant dream, prompting thoughts like, “Did that really happen?”
In Matt’s video, we see how the pandemic was reported not as a collective problem to be solved, but a horror movie to be passively experienced. This is a media approach we see deployed in a variety of issues from fake news to “sonic weapons,” one that trains frightened audiences to endorse extreme solutions and outsource thinking to authorities. This makes it all the more important that we remember episodes like “Children of the COVID,” the next time we’re told to Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Pandemic coverage was also a classic example of how reporters now are often not really free to write in nuanced ways about politically charged issues. Even a breezy writing style can be taken as evidence of secret political unsuitability.
As I see it, Sam Harris, who I have much admired over the years, has somewhat fallen off the rails on COVID, Free Speech and Trump. It happens to all of us, some of the time. I hope he can settle himself and get back in the game. In the meantime, Harris and Bret Weinstein have been struggling to figure out why they have had recent pointed disagreements. Bret's Tweet offers a reason for their disagreements:
Jimmy Dore dissects Sam Harris' recent strange discussion about COVID (starting at hr./min. 2:51). This is about a strange as Sam Harris' recent discussion regarding Hunter Biden's laptop. Glenn Greenwald links to the video clip of Harris and offers this commentary:
All of this stems from the classic mentality of all would-be tyrants: our enemies are so dangerous, their views so threatening, that everything we do – lying, repression, censorship – is noble. That's what made the Sam Harris confession so vital: that's how liberal elites think.