It’s Time for NPR to Earn Its Own Funding With Respectable Reporting

I don't want to forced to fund NPR any more than want to be forced to fund Fox News. Uri Berliner served as the senior business editor at NPR from 1999 until his resignation in April 2024. What follows is an excerpt from his article, "Happy Independence Day, NPR." Anyone who has been paying attention knows that he not exaggerating the far-left slide of NPR:

Once fairly evenly divided between liberals, moderates, and conservatives, NPR’s news audience shifted sharply to the left. And by 2023, liberals outnumbered conservatives more than six to one. True to the tote bag cliché, NPR became an accessory for Whole Foods shoppers. Which is sad, because in another era, NPR, and public radio more broadly, developed some of the most creative and entertaining programming anywhere, from Car Talk to This American Life, Planet Money, Radiolab and A Prairie Home Companion.

Thanks in part to this ideological transformation, NPR botched major stories—and damaged its bond with the American people.

To name a couple of prominent examples: It repeatedly insisted that the lab leak theory of Covid had been debunked and it refused to cover Hunter Biden’s laptop. NPR’s reporting on the most contentious issues of the day—climate change, youth gender medicine, and the war in Gaza—leaned on moralizing and emotional certitude more than on rigorous factual analysis.

Embracing the mantras of the Great Awokening, NPR became a caricature of itself with headlines like these:

Microfeminism: The Next Big Thing in Fighting the Patriarchy

Which Skin Color Emoji Should You Use? The Answer Can Be More Complex than You Think

Black Women’s Groups Find Health and Healing on Hikes, But Sometimes Racism, Too

Bringing Diversity to Maine’s Nearly All-White Lobster Fleet

Diet Culture Can Hurt Kids. This Author Advises Parents to Reclaim the Word ‘Fat’

These Drag Artists Know How to Turn Climate Activism into a Joyful Blowout

Continue ReadingIt’s Time for NPR to Earn Its Own Funding With Respectable Reporting

Whitney Webb: What to Do About the Puppetmaster

Whitney Webb argues that the general public is unaware of the power structure of oligarch networks and their connection to the national security state. She argues that the CIA, created by Wall Street bankers with ties to organized crime, has historically served corporate interests. She calls for individuals to disengage from big tech companies, which are heavily interconnected with intelligence agencies and have unsavory associations. She advocates for independence from these systems to avoid being controlled by them, emphasizing the need for personal responsibility and action rather than relying on the political system. Transcript of Whitney Webb:

What I attempt to do. I mean, basically, at the end of the day, this into these entities and this power structure had been successful because people have not really been aware of what, what's been going on, and how interconnected a lot of these oligarch networks ultimately are, and how connected they are to our national security state. Because a lot of people, you know, if we're just talking about, back to my point earlier, talking about Mossad, talking about the CIA, who does the CIA work for? Who does Mossad work for?

In the case of the CIA, it's very clear that it was created by Wall Street bankers who entered into questionable alliances with organized crime, and bankers and organized crime are both ultimately interested in expanding their their rackets and is making as much money as possible. And so eventually you have certain economic networks and court you know, the this, these, these alliances dominated what is now corporate America, the multinational corporation that's who the CIA has throughout most of its history, conducted coups on behalf of so we have to go a level up if we really want to know what's going on and Look beyond CIA and Mossad and see, you know, who's really, at least at the scale up a key part of the power structure that's really running the show, because, you know, it's important for them that the public doesn't really look that high up, because then it just seems like We can't really do anything about it, but I think people ultimately can.

What I've argued a lot for a long time is that people need to try and extricate themselves from the biggest iteration of what this mob is today, which is really big tech, which is, again, connected to a lot of it. Connect a lot of these CEOs connected to figures like Epstein or other questionable associations, and also almost all of the big Silicon Valley companies today have their have origins or funding tied to the CIA or to DARPA or to entities like that and that.

We should boycott them as much as possible, and not use their services as much as possible, and not be dependent on these entities. Because if we're dependent then, you know, they can do whatever they want to us. Yeah, and so you know the best way to not give up is to work to be as independent of those systems as possible. Because if we're dependent on them you're basically a slave to these people at the end of the day, which is what I think most Americans do not want.

There's a lot of efforts being made to sort of keep people in in the box of where they think, Oh, well, if I vote for this party or this politician and this candidate, I don't have to do anything to ensure my independence from the system. I can remain dependent on the system and hope that politician XYZ will magically, you know, save the day and fix the country and, you know, ends this ruling power of 80 plus years of, you know, intelligence and organized crime. Yeah, I think it's really something that has to be sort of done on an individual level, and people need to take individual responsibility if they don't want to be part of the system, particularly as we move into this increasingly digital future that these very small handful of companies are going to completely control.

In sum, here is what we can do:

  • Boycott and avoid using services from big tech companies that have ties to the CIA and DARPA.

  • Encourage others to become more independent from the current power structure and not be dependent on the system.

  • Raise awareness about the interconnected nature of oligarch networks, intelligence agencies, and multinational corporations.

Who is Whitney Webb?  According to Grok:

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Continue ReadingWhitney Webb: What to Do About the Puppetmaster

Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn Discuss Losing Friends in our Balkanized World

I've been listening to the four-part series of conversations wherein Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn discuss the novel 1984. In Part III, they discuss the horrific social balkanization of the modern day U.S. I transcribed it below:

Re: The Orwellian Future.

Walter Kirn:

And if you're not all educated in this program at once, you're going to fall out with each other?

Matt Taibbi

Yeah, and that's already happened. I mean, I think we, probably a lot of people who listen to this program, have had the identical experience of suddenly becoming distanced and cut off from people who with whom they were close pretty recently, right? And there's this, you know, for me that a there's an Invasion of the Body Snatchers quality to this, where I'm suddenly kind of hiding my thoughts, or either that, or I just feel, you know, increasingly alone sometimes. And I think this is a widespread phenomenon, but what I worry about is, is, is that it's going to disappear, because they're going to get better at this stuff. I mean, the less you know we're we're grounded in history and time, and realize that there are different. There's a whole range of opinions and feelings and things like that, the easier it becomes to smash

Walter Kirn

You don't want to be the control group, the people who aren't taking the drug when everybody else is taking The drug, especially if the drug for them feels urgent, necessary and perfect, and they have committed to it such that even if it has terrible side effects, they're going to keep taking it. All you will do if you don't and maybe thrive is enrage them about the choice they made and now regret and or you just become inexplicable to them. You know, why is Matt? Why is Matt repeating those conspiracy theories? What's wrong with Matt? What foreign government? What happened, you man? What malign entity has gotten a hold of him who's paying him to say these things? Exactly what happened to you? I mean, both you and I have experienced, just recently, a real upsurge in what they call concern trolling, which is, you know, I'm really worried about you, or you used to be cool. Yesterday, I saw a tweet against me, which said, Is this tweet evidence of mania or an untreated stroke, literally physicalizing it, you know, Walter, I think you need to go see a neurologist for your for your tweets. And that causes me to want to withdraw from those people, to want to withdraw from the people who know those people, and it causes them to fear that maybe there's some contagion they might get from me, or they might get punished for knowing me. They don't want to be seen. And as I say, the rate at which this process goes forth, which will be different for everyone and for every group, is going to cause new kinds of rifts we're used to. We're used to balkanization, traditionally, historically, over race, ethnicity, gender, language, religion and so on. But we're now going to face balkanization over submission levels of information.

Matt Taibbi

Yeah, Yep, absolutely. And you know, my cure for this, ironically, you know, has been spend less time on the internet, read more, you know, and that's one of the reasons I think we do this. This the show.

Walter Kirn:

And why should let's and mine too. And why should reading be, why should reading be a remedy for for this kind of cognitive balkanization, I'll call it, because by reading, you go back to a book, especially books that were written at least a few decades ago or more. You go back and you are able to be with peers in a way you're able to feel a sense of community, an intellectual community, that you can't get now. In other words, it's a less fractured existence, a less fractured reality. You. Uh, because the book has created its own in a way, community of minds. And there are commentaries on the book and and it was also written at a time when this balkanization was less advanced, and you do really find refuge,

Matt Taibbi

You do. And I mean, I remember this, when I was a kid, the the feeling, you know, if you if you're one of those kids, like I was, who, you know, had trouble at school, wasn't popular, like, if you were bullied, if you were any of those folks,

Walter Kirn

You're so big, how did they bully? Well, I wasn't big until

Matt Taibbi

A certain point, and then, yeah, then it became a, anyway,

Walter Kirn

Puny ass bitches, yeah.

Matt Taibbi

But, you know, I had a hard time when I was a kid for a variety of reasons, and, and, and I remember having this thought that, wow, like, you know, there are these people who are long dead, who I seem to have be closer to than anybody that I meet all the time, you know, in my regular daily life and but also, what's important about books is, is that it forces your mind to do things that In a society that is sort of anti thought. Those muscles are kind of turned off, right? You have to construct images. You have to feel other people's feelings. You have to do all these things that doesn't do it for you. It doesn't show it to you. And you know, the weaker that muscle gets in your head, the easier it is to kind of stamp out your individuality, and books force you to get back in shape spiritually a little bit, and they do. And so it's, it's a beautiful thing, still, but,

Walter Kirn

But also for a book to work except for, except for radical experimental books that are, you know, determined to be incoherent and jagged and, you know, internally contradictory. But for most books to work, they have to present an internally coherent universe. Okay? And it's just like going on vacation to immerse yourself in a coherent universe, even if it's a nightmare like 1984 because the much worse nightmare than being in a coherent airstrip one Oceania, World of 1984 of nightmarish political oppression is to live in a world of absolutely splintered, uncertain and unstable, endless surprise, contradiction and disappointment and in, you know, and social,

Matt Taibbi

Incompatible, paradox, all those things, yeah, absolutely.

Walter Kirn

It's like going to a small town 1984 you know, it may be the most nightmarish small town ever built by man's mind, but at least you feel, after you started reading it, that you know how it works and what its rules are and who the people are, and little of what to expect.

Matt Taibbi

Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So nightmarish as this is, it's still, it's it's still a respite in some ways, so but horrifying part of the book still relevant anyway, thank you, Walter.

Steve Kirsch and Bret Weinstein have also spoken of the substantial social costs one incurs by being true to one's self in a time when many people delegate fact-finding to their favorite tribe

Continue ReadingMatt Taibbi and Walter Kirn Discuss Losing Friends in our Balkanized World

Conflating Criticism of the Government of Israel with Anti-Semitism

Ted Cruz accusing Tucker Carlson of being anti-semitic merely for Carlson questioning Cruz' positions regarding a foreign government: Israel. This is a diversionary tactic increasingly being used by those who don't want to discuss increasingly reckless and bizarre decisions by U.S. politicians regarding the coordinated use of military power by the U.S. and Israel. Fascinating conversation. It's sad to see politicians stooping this low to avoid having meaningful discussion.

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About to be Fired for the Crime of Being a Good Teacher

. . . and he is now about to be fired for being a good teacher for reading "To Kill a Mockingbird" out loud. This obtuse school district doesn't understand the use versus mention distinction. I hope he reaches out to FIRE or a competent attorney who handles First Amendment and public school employment cases.

Continue ReadingAbout to be Fired for the Crime of Being a Good Teacher