CNN Uses Cancel Culture Tactics to Attempt to Prevent Vivek Ramaswamy from Saying Obviously True Things

Why do I have almost no respect for corporate media? Here is a recent example of how they function. CNN is trying to dictate that you are not adult enough to hear Ramaswamy's opinions that conflict its preferred narratives and make up your own mind. This is despite the fact that everything Ramaswamy is working so hard to say is established uncontroverted fact. This is corporate media cancel culture at work, motivated by their obeisance to the federal security state. Such shameful behavior by the CNN host.

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1735306093322977484

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Andrew Sullivan’s Prescription for Curing our Bad Case of DEI

We've got an enormous problem with DEI. It goes completely against what all of us seek when we need the best surgeon to operate on us, the best engineer to design a new bridge or the best pilot to safely fly us home. Even though we all know this, many of us have been afraid to say this lately. It is entirely rational and humane to seek out the best qualified people to fill jobs. Full stop. Although it is often a challenge to decide who is the best qualified person for the job, there is no close competitor to basing our decisions on merit.

Andrew Sullivan succinctly articulated the way forward:

End DEI in its entirety. Fire all the administrators whose only job is to enforce its toxic orthodoxy. Admit students on academic merit alone. Save standardized testing — which in fact helps minorities, and it’s “the best way to distinguish smart poor kids from stupid rich kids,” as Steven Pinker said this week. Restore grading so that it actually means something again. Expel students who shut or shout down speech or deplatform speakers. Pay no attention to the race or sex or orientation or gender identity of your students, and see them as free human beings with open minds. Treat them equally as individuals seeking to learn, if you can remember such a concept.

I've promoted this idea throughout the Great Awokening, hearing mostly crickets or criticism from intelligent people. Countless people I know have been sitting on their hands--refusing to say what they really think. They worry, often justifiably, that saying out loud what they really think will cost them their jobs and/or their reputations.

Speaking out in favor of merit as the only basis for hiring isn't just a platitude or an emotion. Consider, finally, this excellent article setting for the many reasons for hiring solely on the basis of merit: "In Defense of Merit in Science." Here is the abstract:

Merit is a central pillar of liberal epistemology, humanism, and democracy. The scientific enterprise, built on merit, has proven effective in generating scientific and technological advances, reducing suffering, narrowing social gaps, and improving the quality of life globally. This perspective documents the ongoing attempts to undermine the core principles of liberal epistemology and to replace merit with non­scientific, politically motivated criteria. We explain the philosophical origins of this conflict, document the intrusion of ideology into our scientific institutions, discuss the perils of abandoning merit, and offer an alternative, human­centered approach to address existing social inequalities.

Continue ReadingAndrew Sullivan’s Prescription for Curing our Bad Case of DEI

No Qualified Applicants for the Job of Censor

Christopher Hitchens:

To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? Or determine in advance what are the harmful consequences going to be, that we know enough about in advance to prevent? To whom would you give this job? To whom are you going to award the job of being the censor?

[...]

To whom you would give the job of deciding for you, relieve you of the responsibility of hearing what you might have to hear?

Do you know anyone — hands up — do you know anyone to whom you’d give this job? Does anyone have a nominee? You mean there’s no one ... good enough to decide what I can read? Or hear?

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Corporate/Government Propaganda: A Tutorial

Robert Malone cites the work of Paul D. Thacker, who describes how powerful entities such as corporations and governments deceive us through propaganda. It was a technique developed by cigarette companies and it has been used ever since, including by COVID grifters. Here's an excerpt:

In December 1953, the CEOs of America’s leading tobacco companies cast aside competitive rancor and gathered at New York City’s Plaza Hotel to confront a menace to their incredibly profitable industry. An emergent body of science published in elite medical journals cast doubt on the safety of cigarettes and threatened to destroy a half-century of corporate success. Joining them at the Plaza was John W. Hill, the president of America’s top public relations firm, Hill & Knowlton. Hill would later prove a decisive savior.

Hill had closely studied Edward Bernays, whose work on propaganda in the 1920s and 1930s laid the foundation of modern public relations and defined common techniques to manipulate popular opinion. Hill understood that any traditional campaign would fail to sway society, which perceived advertising as little more than corporate propaganda. Effective public relations required comprehensive off-stage management of the media. At its best, it left no fingerprints.

Instead of ignoring or denigrating new data that found tobacco dangerous, Hill proposed the opposite: embrace science, trumpet new data, and demand more, not less research. By calling for more research, which they would then fund, tobacco companies could harness academic scientists in a battle to confront a major scientific controversy and amplify skeptical views of the relationship between tobacco and disease. Such a scheme would let companies shroud themselves in doubt and uncertainty—core principles of the scientific process, in which every answer leads to new questions.

Hill & Knowlton’s campaign for the five largest US tobacco companies corrupted science and medicine for decades to follow, laying the foundation for financial conflicts of interest in science, as other industries mimicked tobacco’s techniques to protect their own products from government bans and regulations—later, from consumer lawsuits. While tactics have varied over time, the core strategy has changed little since tobacco wrote the playbook, providing a menu of techniques now employed across industries.

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