> Barely even concealing the open lies: “They know that we know that they know that we know they’re lying… and yet they’re lying”.
Heh, I'm from Poland and this made me think of a quote from a politician[1], about state television (to be clear; he is on their side, not trying to mock):
"Some may think that TVP's broadcasts appal intelligent people. But it is supposed to reach as many Poles as possible".
[1] Persecutor when we were communist, now a Constitutional Tribunal judge. Which is notable, given that the party which put him on this position uses a lot of rhetoric about lustration and whatnot.
I'm shocked that its tolerated for a former communist prosecutor to be on the bench... Like he would have had dissidents or jeans importers sent to prison, or signed off on torture... and THATs the guy who's supposed to uphold your rights?
.
Like a big part of me doesn't get how so many European countries avoided the fate of the Balkans or Romania... I would have wanted blood after that
Romania wasn't chiefly ordinary people taking revenge. It was the army dealing with an unstable ruler and deciding to enact regime change before it was too late.
And it worked too, as soon as the Ceaucescus were announced dead the protests calmed down and everyone waited for whatever was next.
Btw, sample of state tv (funded from taxes, supposed to be politically impartial...) I translated; it was supposedly a _news story_ - not sth like an political ad. But even for political ad, it's... special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOZR2OxM4uc
> Like he would have had dissidents or jeans importers sent to prison, or signed off on torture.
Unverified account, but like half of our politicians are unverified for some reason, lol.
-------------
Anyway,
He supposedly didn't do much political persecution - though there was at least one case. Below is a translation from his (PL) Wikipedia page; it's somewhat confusing:
> During martial law, he was the author of the indictment against opposition activist Antoni Pikul, accused of distributing samizdat publications. The wording of the indictment stated, among other things: "In light of the evidence, the defendant's explanations do not sound convincing. The findings made make it possible to conclude that Antoni Pikul, while martial law was in force, committed a crime [...]. Directing an indictment against Antoni Pikul should be considered justified."
> After the case became public in 2013, Stanislaw Piotrowicz stated that he had sought to discontinue these proceedings. According to Stanislaw Piotrowicz's account, after the case of oppositionist Anton Pikul came to him, he established cooperation with the defendant's defense attorney Stanislaw Zając, and together they were to establish such a line of action as to be most favorable to the defendant. As a result of these actions, the case was supposed to return to the prosecutor's office in Jaslo, but there it was decided to hand it over to the military prosecutor's office in Rzeszow, where the case was discontinued, and Stanislaw Piotrowicz is to this day convinced that this was significantly influenced by the protocol he had drawn up earlier.
> Stanislaw Zając was no longer alive after the case became public, so he could not confirm Stanislaw Piotrowicz's account, while Aleksander Bentkowski, who as Minister of Justice in Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government appointed Stanislaw Piotrowicz in 1990 to head the district prosecutor's office in Krosno, has also spoken out about the case.
> Recalling the circumstances of this appointment, Aleksander Bentkowski revealed that in connection with this he consulted Stanislaw Zajac specifically, who supposedly spoke positively about Stanislaw Piotrowicz and said that he could be appointed calmly to this position, claiming that he was a decent man. Antoni Pikul himself said in 2015 that Stanislaw Piotrowicz behaved decently towards him, by the standards of a communist prosecutor acting under martial law, and his prosecution speech at the trial was more like that of a defense attorney, yet in 2016 he said that Stanislaw Piotrowicz did not lift a finger in his case.
> In 1984, his service superiors stated that "he is a diligent and disciplined employee, ambitious and efficient. He performs the duties entrusted to him properly. He uses the findings he has made for comprehensive preventive activities. He devotes a lot of attention to popularizing the law especially in youth circles."
The institution is reduced to be a rubberstamp anyway. The way they dismantled it is... well, ridiculous. IANAL; I wonder what ymeshkout would say about it, maybe I'll make a post about it later on themotte. Anyway:
> On 22 December 2015, the Sejm passed a law which re-organized the Constitutional Tribunal: (...) In order to ensure that the new judges would not be cornered into permanent minority, the new law set a two-thirds majority. Article 190 (5) of the Polish Constitution requires the "majority" of votes. The new law specifies it to mean a qualified majority.
I suppose it works on a language level. You have word majority; qualified majority is a kind of majority. Of course, that's ridiculous. If someone says majority and nothing else - it clearly means >50%. If they say qualified 2/3 majority - it clearly means 66.(6)%. The new law doesn't "specify" anything; it replaces a number - specified by constitution - with another number.
So, the law is clearly unconstitutional, right? Anyone could see it (ok that's false; there are plenty of people I discussed with online, who claim to believe there's no issue here).
Of course, while anyone could see it, there's a specific institution which can actually officially interpret the constitution and strike down such laws. Even if it's so obvious, if this institution won't act - constitution is made kinda meaningless.
The issue is, it is the same institution whose workings this law alters. Of course, it can't possibly be that easy, right? How could Constitution be upheld at all if one could just pass a law which alters it? It seems obvious any law making changes _to this particular institution_ must be constitutional itself.
> On 9 March 2016, the Constitutional Tribunal, sitting without the new judges, ruled the amendments non-compliant with the Polish constitution. The Polish government regards this verdict as non-binding, as it was not itself based on the rules introduced by the amendment, and refused to publish the verdict, a binding condition for its legal validity.
Yea. *as it was not itself based on the rules introduced by the amendment*. This line of reasoning is... truly something.
-------------------------------
I don't actually believe in lustration really. Moldbug is right about the cozy regime change thing[1]. But in this case... Constitutional Tribunal is just a few people. And they couldn't put someone who wasn't a communist persecutor there? Even if he truly didn't do anything outrageous... it's stupid.
What's worse is that they populistically did things like reducing retirements for people who worked in 'totalitarian institutions' - SB, our equivalent of KGB. Which is... maybe fine. But. There were some people who only 'technically' worked there - who still got targeted.
Back to Piotrowicz - made Constitutional Tribunal judge. Our Prime Minister said this, among other things - "Piotrowicz was a PRL prosecutor, but he behaved decently".
Yet. When they decided to target these people... then they didn't give a shit whether someone 'behaved decently' or did anything wrong at all. No.
> PESEL (Universal Electronic System for Registration of the Population) is the national identification number used in Poland since 1979. The number is 11 digits long, identifies exactly one person, and cannot be changed once assigned, except in specific situations (such as gender reassignment). The PESEL system was originally designed by the communist government of the Polish People's Republic to trace personal information about every citizen.
> The amendment to the law on retirement benefits for, among others, police officers and the Internal Security Agency (ABW) hit a group of nearly 300 computer scientists, technicians, programmers, as well as lawyers and statisticians who had been working since the mid-1970s to develop the PESEL system. An amendment to the law, which has been in effect since the beginning of the year, is expected to reduce the pensions of former employees of the security apparatus.
> - We were treated worse than if we had been criminals, taken bribes or actually used violence against citizens. If that were the case, and if we were convicted, we would automatically be excluded from the uniformed pension system and would be under the Social Security. Then my pension based on contributions and years of service, including 24 years of service after 1990, would have been many times higher," Wieslawa Popis, who was one of the first employees of the former Government Information Center later renamed the PESEL department, tells dziennik.pl.
> The department, which worked on the PESEL system, was incorporated into the Ministry of the Interior in the early 1980s. The department's main leadership consisted of people from the Security Service. However, the employees who created the system were prominent experts, the elite of computer scientists at the time.
> - In the Government Information Center, we were in the employ of the Citizens' Militia, but this was due to an obligation imposed by a resolution of the Council of Ministers," says Lech Rutkowski, former head of the field service in the PESEL department. Until now, the work of the team was evaluated quite differently. Its members did not have to undergo vetting in the 1990s to continue working for the Interior Ministry. They were also not under the purview of the 2006 vetting law. (according to its guidelines, they were not SB officers).
> Experts who created the PESEL have now learned that in the list prepared by the IPN for the new law, they were included among "officers performing work for the totalitarian state." The upshot is that for work before 1990, they are to have their rate reduced to 0.0 percent for each year of service. What's more, even if they still made high contributions after 1990, they still won't get more than the average pension paid out by the Social Security system (about PLN 2053 gross). This is in some cases several times less than their current pensions.
> That's why a group of 70 former employees of the PESEL department asked the IPN why they were considered SB officers. The institute only wrote them back that since the law obligated the institute to issue information on the service record of former Interior Ministry employees, it provided such information and did not analyze or evaluate what that service consisted of.
> The Ministry of the Interior, which drafted the law, did not respond to dziennik.pl's questions about the basis for the change in the status of PESEL department employees.
(Shame there are no subtitles. I don't understand why Google is shit like this. They can do PL speech recognition fine. They could for years! Eh.)
Anyway, The old guy in the videos was the main propagandist in the communist era. Sure, that's pretty bad. But it's interesting to have him around, making fun of current propaganda and such.
I love this essay. I keep coming back despite (because of?) the fact that its too long; its rambling, self-referential, self-contradictory.... it tries for so much that even the exceptions-that-prove-the-rule are interesting puzzles, not distractions. There's room for everything here.
You could probably break out the section on advertising and republish it as a more-targeted piece, but its also perfect the way it is. Thank you!
> Even the plotlines of Disney children’s shows and something as supposedly serious as Law and Order, all share a narrative insistence on a legitimate authority to be trusted, and explicit or implicit moral instructions, with seeming ethical quandaries all being wrapped up in under an hour.
Oh, goodness, these lines leaped out at me -- when I first started watched Law and Order I really liked the show and all of the characters. After a few years of watching, (though I still liked the police characters) I got to where I hoped the angry, self righteous DA would lose his cases. He was so sanctimonious -- and, believe it or not, I am absolutely a "law and order" person. I want these people shoplifting $999 worth of goods in LA, NY, and Chicago arrested and stuck in jail for a while. I want the borders, north and south, closed and entries to any country controlled and immigration to any country to follow their laws -- how can you have a country if you don't maintain the borders?
As far as the ads appealing for help of the little, old, worn-out ladies in their scarves, all cold and hungry and in need of help, I often wonder, where are these people? Who is this person asking viewers for help? I think: This makes no sense. Why don't they appeal to Israeli's on their tv stations?
Anyway, I enjoyed the essay, but it's almost like a short text book for a conference -- it covers so many topics that I need to re-read it. I kept wondering, where is this going to be tied together, distilled to its theme?
One more thing -- I haven't noticed lots of different brands of old people's diapers. In fact, I can't say that I've noticed those type of ads -- I kept asking myself, have I noticed an ad for Depends? Or any other 'store' or generic brand? No. They must sail over my head. I have grown weary of seeing women, both slim and fat, whirling around in their female panties that help contain leaks of all kinds, and they revolt me. Today's culture is so often gross and corrupt -- there is no dignity or pride remaining in public places, especially our tv viewing choices. Yes, I am old and a woman and old-fashioned, just can't help myself.
This would be a great piece to introduce Book VII of the Republic and Jaeger’s Paideia Volume III on the conflict between the sophist/oligarchs and the realists. Also, now in March 2023 Jordan Peterson and Prather have come out pro-pornography. The Daily Wire also has interesting funding sources!
I believe legacy media is largely funded by people who want to control the narrative of society. However they are not very effective at how they spend their money, which is why their system of control is breaking down so far and being disassembled by populist demagogues.
I write about this more here, if you're interested:
It’s about my realization that basically all large companies routinely initiate force (primarily fraud). Therefore, if we had a capitalist, minarchist government tomorrow, that would result in more police action against companies, not leaving companies alone more. I think Objectivists and libertarians have over-emphasized the bad actions that governments do, while under-emphasizing the good actions that governments are responsible for doing but don’t do.
Interesting. I'll give it a read, though I'm likely to disagree being an anarchist...
To my mind if a pharmaceutical company is systematically using force or fraud against you the answer shouldn't be a government that we've seen always gets corrupted by those concentrated interests... It should be you and your allies coordinating to get incorruptible vengeance.
It's not about minarchy vs. anarchism. It's about me becoming less naive and realizing how bad ~all current large companies are. I'm open to anarchy in theory/principle. If e.g. anarcho-capitalist police enforced the non-aggression principle that could substitute for minarchy with basically the same result in my article.
BTW I avoid almost all politics now but enjoyed reading your long article. Thanks.
Sure, they're bad. But why? Because they don't face sufficient competition, because they are protected by economic moats, because the corporate structure itself is a creature of the government.
One thing you might consider: the consumers of Raytheon *securities* are the people who also consume overpriced medications. It sort of doesn't matter what the 18-34 set is buying when their grandparents & parents are still sitting on all the money. We are, it is said, undergoing the greatest integenerational transfer of wealth (in the history of the galaxy), but not, of course, if the medico-financial complex can skim off its share before it happens.
Very interesting article. I always assumed the likes of CNN had huge reserves of traditional viewership to fall back on, but maybe not. Another place they get a huge amount of eyeballs are places like airports, trainstations, bars and gyms where they're the default background noise.
Also, another thought: What if they're so valued by advertisers like raytheon because the regime themselves are inclined to watch them? I would not be surprised to find out they're getting high on their own supply.
What you say here is more than you can give evidence for.
But one point you made has impressed me: the ads are not to sell anything, but to buy influence, rather, protection. I've been puzzled by the breast cancer drug ads. They are so technical that only a cancer doctor could understand them, and the yield of new customers must be tiny. You've given me a new understanding of that.
This all makes sense, but you're missing some important context: How the government is deeply in bed with Facebook, Google, and (formerly) Twitter, as revealed by the Twitter Files. It's not just legacy media they're trying to control, but all media, at all levels.
> Barely even concealing the open lies: “They know that we know that they know that we know they’re lying… and yet they’re lying”.
Heh, I'm from Poland and this made me think of a quote from a politician[1], about state television (to be clear; he is on their side, not trying to mock):
"Some may think that TVP's broadcasts appal intelligent people. But it is supposed to reach as many Poles as possible".
[1] Persecutor when we were communist, now a Constitutional Tribunal judge. Which is notable, given that the party which put him on this position uses a lot of rhetoric about lustration and whatnot.
That's impressive.
I'm shocked that its tolerated for a former communist prosecutor to be on the bench... Like he would have had dissidents or jeans importers sent to prison, or signed off on torture... and THATs the guy who's supposed to uphold your rights?
.
Like a big part of me doesn't get how so many European countries avoided the fate of the Balkans or Romania... I would have wanted blood after that
Romania wasn't chiefly ordinary people taking revenge. It was the army dealing with an unstable ruler and deciding to enact regime change before it was too late.
And it worked too, as soon as the Ceaucescus were announced dead the protests calmed down and everyone waited for whatever was next.
Btw, sample of state tv (funded from taxes, supposed to be politically impartial...) I translated; it was supposedly a _news story_ - not sth like an political ad. But even for political ad, it's... special: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOZR2OxM4uc
> Like he would have had dissidents or jeans importers sent to prison, or signed off on torture.
Eh, they've appointed worse than him. Not a communist, but... well, here's one of her tweets: https://twitter.com/krystpawlowicz/status/1354004696697081858
Unverified account, but like half of our politicians are unverified for some reason, lol.
-------------
Anyway,
He supposedly didn't do much political persecution - though there was at least one case. Below is a translation from his (PL) Wikipedia page; it's somewhat confusing:
> During martial law, he was the author of the indictment against opposition activist Antoni Pikul, accused of distributing samizdat publications. The wording of the indictment stated, among other things: "In light of the evidence, the defendant's explanations do not sound convincing. The findings made make it possible to conclude that Antoni Pikul, while martial law was in force, committed a crime [...]. Directing an indictment against Antoni Pikul should be considered justified."
> After the case became public in 2013, Stanislaw Piotrowicz stated that he had sought to discontinue these proceedings. According to Stanislaw Piotrowicz's account, after the case of oppositionist Anton Pikul came to him, he established cooperation with the defendant's defense attorney Stanislaw Zając, and together they were to establish such a line of action as to be most favorable to the defendant. As a result of these actions, the case was supposed to return to the prosecutor's office in Jaslo, but there it was decided to hand it over to the military prosecutor's office in Rzeszow, where the case was discontinued, and Stanislaw Piotrowicz is to this day convinced that this was significantly influenced by the protocol he had drawn up earlier.
> Stanislaw Zając was no longer alive after the case became public, so he could not confirm Stanislaw Piotrowicz's account, while Aleksander Bentkowski, who as Minister of Justice in Tadeusz Mazowiecki's government appointed Stanislaw Piotrowicz in 1990 to head the district prosecutor's office in Krosno, has also spoken out about the case.
> Recalling the circumstances of this appointment, Aleksander Bentkowski revealed that in connection with this he consulted Stanislaw Zajac specifically, who supposedly spoke positively about Stanislaw Piotrowicz and said that he could be appointed calmly to this position, claiming that he was a decent man. Antoni Pikul himself said in 2015 that Stanislaw Piotrowicz behaved decently towards him, by the standards of a communist prosecutor acting under martial law, and his prosecution speech at the trial was more like that of a defense attorney, yet in 2016 he said that Stanislaw Piotrowicz did not lift a finger in his case.
> In 1984, his service superiors stated that "he is a diligent and disciplined employee, ambitious and efficient. He performs the duties entrusted to him properly. He uses the findings he has made for comprehensive preventive activities. He devotes a lot of attention to popularizing the law especially in youth circles."
2/
> and THATs the guy who's supposed to uphold your rights?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Constitutional_Tribunal_crisis_(2015_%E2%80%93_ongoing)
The institution is reduced to be a rubberstamp anyway. The way they dismantled it is... well, ridiculous. IANAL; I wonder what ymeshkout would say about it, maybe I'll make a post about it later on themotte. Anyway:
> On 22 December 2015, the Sejm passed a law which re-organized the Constitutional Tribunal: (...) In order to ensure that the new judges would not be cornered into permanent minority, the new law set a two-thirds majority. Article 190 (5) of the Polish Constitution requires the "majority" of votes. The new law specifies it to mean a qualified majority.
I suppose it works on a language level. You have word majority; qualified majority is a kind of majority. Of course, that's ridiculous. If someone says majority and nothing else - it clearly means >50%. If they say qualified 2/3 majority - it clearly means 66.(6)%. The new law doesn't "specify" anything; it replaces a number - specified by constitution - with another number.
So, the law is clearly unconstitutional, right? Anyone could see it (ok that's false; there are plenty of people I discussed with online, who claim to believe there's no issue here).
Of course, while anyone could see it, there's a specific institution which can actually officially interpret the constitution and strike down such laws. Even if it's so obvious, if this institution won't act - constitution is made kinda meaningless.
The issue is, it is the same institution whose workings this law alters. Of course, it can't possibly be that easy, right? How could Constitution be upheld at all if one could just pass a law which alters it? It seems obvious any law making changes _to this particular institution_ must be constitutional itself.
> On 9 March 2016, the Constitutional Tribunal, sitting without the new judges, ruled the amendments non-compliant with the Polish constitution. The Polish government regards this verdict as non-binding, as it was not itself based on the rules introduced by the amendment, and refused to publish the verdict, a binding condition for its legal validity.
Yea. *as it was not itself based on the rules introduced by the amendment*. This line of reasoning is... truly something.
-------------------------------
I don't actually believe in lustration really. Moldbug is right about the cozy regime change thing[1]. But in this case... Constitutional Tribunal is just a few people. And they couldn't put someone who wasn't a communist persecutor there? Even if he truly didn't do anything outrageous... it's stupid.
What's worse is that they populistically did things like reducing retirements for people who worked in 'totalitarian institutions' - SB, our equivalent of KGB. Which is... maybe fine. But. There were some people who only 'technically' worked there - who still got targeted.
Back to Piotrowicz - made Constitutional Tribunal judge. Our Prime Minister said this, among other things - "Piotrowicz was a PRL prosecutor, but he behaved decently".
Yet. When they decided to target these people... then they didn't give a shit whether someone 'behaved decently' or did anything wrong at all. No.
Translated from this article: https://www.money.pl/gospodarka/wiadomosci/artykul/ustawa-dezubekizacyjna-tworcy-pesel-emerytury,163,0,2294947.html (and first paragraph from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PESEL).
> PESEL (Universal Electronic System for Registration of the Population) is the national identification number used in Poland since 1979. The number is 11 digits long, identifies exactly one person, and cannot be changed once assigned, except in specific situations (such as gender reassignment). The PESEL system was originally designed by the communist government of the Polish People's Republic to trace personal information about every citizen.
> The amendment to the law on retirement benefits for, among others, police officers and the Internal Security Agency (ABW) hit a group of nearly 300 computer scientists, technicians, programmers, as well as lawyers and statisticians who had been working since the mid-1970s to develop the PESEL system. An amendment to the law, which has been in effect since the beginning of the year, is expected to reduce the pensions of former employees of the security apparatus.
> - We were treated worse than if we had been criminals, taken bribes or actually used violence against citizens. If that were the case, and if we were convicted, we would automatically be excluded from the uniformed pension system and would be under the Social Security. Then my pension based on contributions and years of service, including 24 years of service after 1990, would have been many times higher," Wieslawa Popis, who was one of the first employees of the former Government Information Center later renamed the PESEL department, tells dziennik.pl.
> The department, which worked on the PESEL system, was incorporated into the Ministry of the Interior in the early 1980s. The department's main leadership consisted of people from the Security Service. However, the employees who created the system were prominent experts, the elite of computer scientists at the time.
> - In the Government Information Center, we were in the employ of the Citizens' Militia, but this was due to an obligation imposed by a resolution of the Council of Ministers," says Lech Rutkowski, former head of the field service in the PESEL department. Until now, the work of the team was evaluated quite differently. Its members did not have to undergo vetting in the 1990s to continue working for the Interior Ministry. They were also not under the purview of the 2006 vetting law. (according to its guidelines, they were not SB officers).
> Experts who created the PESEL have now learned that in the list prepared by the IPN for the new law, they were included among "officers performing work for the totalitarian state." The upshot is that for work before 1990, they are to have their rate reduced to 0.0 percent for each year of service. What's more, even if they still made high contributions after 1990, they still won't get more than the average pension paid out by the Social Security system (about PLN 2053 gross). This is in some cases several times less than their current pensions.
> That's why a group of 70 former employees of the PESEL department asked the IPN why they were considered SB officers. The institute only wrote them back that since the law obligated the institute to issue information on the service record of former Interior Ministry employees, it provided such information and did not analyze or evaluate what that service consisted of.
> The Ministry of the Interior, which drafted the law, did not respond to dziennik.pl's questions about the basis for the change in the status of PESEL department employees.
[1] I mean, if we did bloody regime change, this hilarious YT channel wouldn't exist: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKI8MqLlLCRYuzS9B-q3Eww/videos
(Shame there are no subtitles. I don't understand why Google is shit like this. They can do PL speech recognition fine. They could for years! Eh.)
Anyway, The old guy in the videos was the main propagandist in the communist era. Sure, that's pretty bad. But it's interesting to have him around, making fun of current propaganda and such.
--------
I got kinda carried away...
Out of curiosity, is this the justice party? What do you make about them being kicked out?
I love this essay. I keep coming back despite (because of?) the fact that its too long; its rambling, self-referential, self-contradictory.... it tries for so much that even the exceptions-that-prove-the-rule are interesting puzzles, not distractions. There's room for everything here.
You could probably break out the section on advertising and republish it as a more-targeted piece, but its also perfect the way it is. Thank you!
> Even the plotlines of Disney children’s shows and something as supposedly serious as Law and Order, all share a narrative insistence on a legitimate authority to be trusted, and explicit or implicit moral instructions, with seeming ethical quandaries all being wrapped up in under an hour.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNy6F7ZwX8I
Oh, goodness, these lines leaped out at me -- when I first started watched Law and Order I really liked the show and all of the characters. After a few years of watching, (though I still liked the police characters) I got to where I hoped the angry, self righteous DA would lose his cases. He was so sanctimonious -- and, believe it or not, I am absolutely a "law and order" person. I want these people shoplifting $999 worth of goods in LA, NY, and Chicago arrested and stuck in jail for a while. I want the borders, north and south, closed and entries to any country controlled and immigration to any country to follow their laws -- how can you have a country if you don't maintain the borders?
As far as the ads appealing for help of the little, old, worn-out ladies in their scarves, all cold and hungry and in need of help, I often wonder, where are these people? Who is this person asking viewers for help? I think: This makes no sense. Why don't they appeal to Israeli's on their tv stations?
Anyway, I enjoyed the essay, but it's almost like a short text book for a conference -- it covers so many topics that I need to re-read it. I kept wondering, where is this going to be tied together, distilled to its theme?
One more thing -- I haven't noticed lots of different brands of old people's diapers. In fact, I can't say that I've noticed those type of ads -- I kept asking myself, have I noticed an ad for Depends? Or any other 'store' or generic brand? No. They must sail over my head. I have grown weary of seeing women, both slim and fat, whirling around in their female panties that help contain leaks of all kinds, and they revolt me. Today's culture is so often gross and corrupt -- there is no dignity or pride remaining in public places, especially our tv viewing choices. Yes, I am old and a woman and old-fashioned, just can't help myself.
This would be a great piece to introduce Book VII of the Republic and Jaeger’s Paideia Volume III on the conflict between the sophist/oligarchs and the realists. Also, now in March 2023 Jordan Peterson and Prather have come out pro-pornography. The Daily Wire also has interesting funding sources!
Great article!
I believe legacy media is largely funded by people who want to control the narrative of society. However they are not very effective at how they spend their money, which is why their system of control is breaking down so far and being disassembled by populist demagogues.
I write about this more here, if you're interested:
https://questioner.substack.com/p/the-cultural-narrative
use a spell checker please
That wouldn't fix the continuous its/it's errors, which I think bother me most of all.
I think it's a stylistic choice.
oh btw @FromKulak I wrote a new political article recently. https://www.elliottemple.com/essays/capitalism-means-policing-big-companies
It’s about my realization that basically all large companies routinely initiate force (primarily fraud). Therefore, if we had a capitalist, minarchist government tomorrow, that would result in more police action against companies, not leaving companies alone more. I think Objectivists and libertarians have over-emphasized the bad actions that governments do, while under-emphasizing the good actions that governments are responsible for doing but don’t do.
Interesting. I'll give it a read, though I'm likely to disagree being an anarchist...
To my mind if a pharmaceutical company is systematically using force or fraud against you the answer shouldn't be a government that we've seen always gets corrupted by those concentrated interests... It should be you and your allies coordinating to get incorruptible vengeance.
It's not about minarchy vs. anarchism. It's about me becoming less naive and realizing how bad ~all current large companies are. I'm open to anarchy in theory/principle. If e.g. anarcho-capitalist police enforced the non-aggression principle that could substitute for minarchy with basically the same result in my article.
BTW I avoid almost all politics now but enjoyed reading your long article. Thanks.
Sure, they're bad. But why? Because they don't face sufficient competition, because they are protected by economic moats, because the corporate structure itself is a creature of the government.
Take all that away and things change fast.
>This video contains content from NBCUniversal_TVD, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds
There's a noteworthy irony here.
One thing you might consider: the consumers of Raytheon *securities* are the people who also consume overpriced medications. It sort of doesn't matter what the 18-34 set is buying when their grandparents & parents are still sitting on all the money. We are, it is said, undergoing the greatest integenerational transfer of wealth (in the history of the galaxy), but not, of course, if the medico-financial complex can skim off its share before it happens.
Very interesting article. I always assumed the likes of CNN had huge reserves of traditional viewership to fall back on, but maybe not. Another place they get a huge amount of eyeballs are places like airports, trainstations, bars and gyms where they're the default background noise.
Also, another thought: What if they're so valued by advertisers like raytheon because the regime themselves are inclined to watch them? I would not be surprised to find out they're getting high on their own supply.
Some insightful points you got there.. thanks
I can't not praise an essay that uses "Burma" instead of that abomination, Myanmar. Well done.
Have you seen this Politcally Incorrect episode when Vietnam comes up? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzUR43N_pEY
Great article of the past. Everyone has a different view, all anti establishment, very much how I remember every thing from the 90s.
What you say here is more than you can give evidence for.
But one point you made has impressed me: the ads are not to sell anything, but to buy influence, rather, protection. I've been puzzled by the breast cancer drug ads. They are so technical that only a cancer doctor could understand them, and the yield of new customers must be tiny. You've given me a new understanding of that.
"Jordan Peterson? talking about Bush lying about WMDs? in 2008!? on TV!?!?"
then
"Peterson was appearing on The Agenda in 2016."
Are you talking about two different appearances? It isn't really apparent from the text.
This all makes sense, but you're missing some important context: How the government is deeply in bed with Facebook, Google, and (formerly) Twitter, as revealed by the Twitter Files. It's not just legacy media they're trying to control, but all media, at all levels.