People Are Stupid

Long gone are the days when intellectuals guided politics and policy discussion. From the socialist left we have Christopher Hitchens, and from the intellectual right we have William F. Buckley Jr.

[video=youtube;AeGKcX-JHNE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeGKcX-JHNE[/video]

Today, we have the likes of Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow..... *vomits*

Can we please try and get back to some sort of intelligent, meaningful debates? Or are we going to just read tabloids and yell at each other on social media?

 

It will probably not change until the old ways of getting news dies out like newspapers. There are too many places to get news now. The herd needs thinning and many sources are doing whatever they can to stay relevant. The NYTIMES and such need to die on out.

 

The problem is news for profit. If news and media companies have shareholders, they will do anything to make profit. Spread lies, stir controversy, and more broadly, keep out ANY message that will change the system itself, i.e. what they did with the Bernie blackout.

 

How? It's all up to us you know. Right? If you wait for a great bunch of intelligent, balanced, honest commentators you can find them but it would solve our troubles because it's up to us.

Would you like a link to an economist who got his undergraduate degree at Harvard, his masters at Princeton, and his Doctorate at Yale? I can provide it if it would help. He's not "status quo establishment", though. Maybe that a plus to you, maybe not.

But it's up to us. We need to let our refusal to settle for status quo known. We need to make clear our demand for solutions. And to be effective it will take organization. We need to organize. We need to participate like Obama said last night.

BTW, what's wrong with Christopher Hitchens' politics, specifically?

 

If you're referring to Professor Wolff, I am way ahead of you haha. I am a socialist myself. I understand there is real news out there, but we need to dismantle corporate media because morons will not turn off the cable. My idea would be to pass a law requiring media outlets that run news to be forced to register as a 501c3. This would end corporate news overnight.

I miss Hitch, quite a lot these days especially.

 

Buckley is great. Noam Chomsky is highly regarded but he's too lut there for me.
I still really liked Milton Friedman. Krugman is absolute trash. Can't think of many prominent current economists. I think of like Adam Smith. Ludwig Von Misis, Hayek back in the day.

 

It depends. If people had the choice as to what cable channels they could buy that might have an impact. As it stands you are forced to pay for a package. This means you pay for channels you do not even watch. These channels put on all kinds of nonsense and still get paid even though they have poor viewership.

 

Krugman threw away his credibility when he back tracked on single payer to conform his writing to Clinton's positions.

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This is very true, I think McCain supported the "buy what you watch" cable bill, but didn't pass since Comcast owns part of Congress. How do you like my non profit idea?

 

Honestly, journalism is dead, it's just propaganda.

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I actually miss Larry Kudlow, he was fantastic.

 

i support consumer protection anti-trust laws, but I support free for profit enterprise.

 

I believe the nonprofit idea would help but the funding would have to come from somewhere. Taking away the greed possibility could help.

 

The problem is those consumer protection laws don't protect against lying newscasters. If we changed our media to a non profit system, we would see more traditional style news, down the line with facts. The profit motive is way too tempting for them, they cannot help themselves.

 

I think it could work as non profits have development teams that raise money and are specifically banned from politically advertising, endorsing, or anything like that. There job would be to report news and explain it, not to take sides or give endorsements.

 

I know what you mean. I watched a show on netflix about a debate between William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal and it was really something. Not just the debate, but the way it was regarded by the public, as if it were a highly anticipated boxing match. Very few people would care about something like that today, and it disappoints me. I blame the internet, Facebook, and twitter. If an idea can't be encapsulated in a few sentences, then it's too taxing for the attention span of the modern man. (or woman)

Hitchens was awesome. I didn't always agree with him, but I was always eager to hear what he had to say on a subject.

 

oh I was talking about cable packaging.

Now for media, that is complicated. I would need specifics, when you say non-profit what would you put in place?

 

There is nothing about being a non-profit that makes things less sensitive to money. The majority of hospitals are non-profit, for example. Changing the media to non-profit wouldn't change a thing.

 

The problem is that our colleges no longer educate, they indoctrinate.

 

This is true. Our academia has been compromised by immoral forces and those contrarian to mainstream views are ostracized.

 

The 'intellectual debate' is being won by people who've wised up and rejected the interminable lies and flagrant corruption of the establishment/status quo.

"don't believe your lying eyes" is no longer an effective position from which to debate, "intellectual" or otherwise.

 

I'm glad I wasn't living back in those days. How mind numbing it'd be to have a few "selected intellectuals" telling me how to think. I prefer the wide open no holds bar way we have it now. I don't need privileged ivory tower intellectuals guiding my thinking. I'm more than intelligent enough to make my own way through the information out there.

 

Don't forget Scott Nearing, one of the greatest of the 20thC.

 

Unfortunately, in many countries, the major 'non profit' tv networks are almost all heavily left biased.

 

The reason for this might have something to do with destroying the profit motive. Hard right wingers love the profit motive, so if you take that away, they don't believe journalism/debate is worth it on its own, so more of the left will gladly fill that space. I could be wrong, hoping I am.

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Nobody ever told anyone what to think. The problem is we have morons on TV who say things like "Obama wasn't born here" and "Republicans are all knuckle draggers", etc. Without actual intellectuals, our political space is full of idiots.

 

Such talking heads are boring and growing obsolete.

Vastly better to have intelligent, good-looking and trendy people like Toni Lauren, Mark Dice and others talk about the difficult subjects in an entertaining and concise venue.

Leftists like Ted Koppel and Dan Rather being put out to pasture along with their failing new networks is something to appreciate.

 

You obviously didn't watch the video. Those people you mention are part of the problem, they're so, so, so stupid. The dumbing down of news and politics is NEVER wise.