Broke-ness follows wokeness because it’s invariably the incompetent, lazy, corrupt and otherwise failed institutions that radicalize to avoid doing their jobs. From the federal government to corporate monopolies to financial gimmicks like FTX to the media to massive charities, institutional wokeness is a red flag that an organization is incompetent or a scam.
As a rule of thumb, the less innovative and functional an organization is, the more likely it is to disguise its innate worthlessness through virtue signaling. Executives go woke when they have no idea how to move a company forward. Employees who don’t want to do their jobs descend into identity politics and demand that the company reflect their values. Those values, apart from all the right racial and sexual politics, will eventually come down to not doing their jobs.
The top generals and admirals in the military have gone woke because they have no idea how to win wars anymore. And there are fewer consequences for declaring a ‘war on hate’ and failing than for losing a war against China or 7th century savages with rocket launchers.
And then there’s the media.
One of the most astounding stories of media malfeasance is how the Associated Press ran a story claiming that Russian missiles struck Poland after a 10 minute Slack chat with a reporter who told colleagues, “I’m actually at a doctor’s appointment.” Nobody at the AP, including its Arab correspondent running the European desk, did any kind of follow-up or got confirmation.
When a scandal like this reveals the internal workings of the media, it’s almost laughable how little fact checking goes into stories and how thoroughly ignorant everyone involved really is.
But the only thing astounding about the story is how commonplace it is. The media now routinely operates this way after discarding the layers of fact checking and runs reports based solely on whether they fit a political narrative and whether there is some anonymous government source behind them. The Russian missile strike story met both criteria.
“They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo,” Ben Rhodes, Obama’s close adviser, once sneered. “Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
He told this to the New York Times.
Sarah Palin’s lawsuit against the New York Times exposed how shoddy the paper’s process that led to it repeating the ‘bullseye’ smear against her was. Former editorial page editor James Bennet sourced the widely discredited claim that her election map had somehow led to the shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords by a mentally unstable man from an old column by a former restaurant critic. Despite the plethora of material showing that it wasn’t true, the paper’s research didn’t go to its news articles or those of any others, but a lefty foodie’s rant.
That is just how the media operates. It’s not a brilliant operation of intrepid reporters who happen to think that Communism was a disappointing failure that needs to be tried again.
Our lying media really is that dumb. And as stupid as you think it may be, it’s even worse.
The media’s research methodologies are roughly about those of a college freshman trying to finish a term paper due the next day after a night of heavy partying. Material is thrown together in 10 minutes or less based on some casual googling or Slack chats by people who only have the job that they do because of their parents, which professor they befriended in journalism school or because of their race or other incidental attributes that qualify them for nothing.
It wasn’t always this way.
Journalism could be politically extreme, but it was also a brash competitive sport. Now there’s no meaningful competition in any other arena other than political radicalism.
A profession whose pinnacle is occupied by the 1619 Project’s Nikole Hannah-Jones, not because she broke open a scandal, but because she allowed the paper of broken record to monetize a racial revisionist history of America despite numerous problems with her claims, is not competitive in any area that rewards journalistic skill. Just ask Taylor Lorenz.
Woke capture shifts the terrain from any kind of meritocracy to agitprop tribalism. The ability of the institution to do its job is at best collateral damage and at worst the target at ground zero.
The media’s current generation is barely equipped with any skill except gaining social media traction by assembling trends into a narrative template. The dirty secret of even the booming old school newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post who boast of massive numbers of digital subscribers and younger audiences is that few actually finish their articles.
They retweet them.
The media is a giant Ponzi scheme run by incompetents, staffed by radical dilettantes and patronized by cultural lefties who subsidize the media the way that they do the ACLU.
And under those conditions, mistakes are bound to happen.
Like declaring that an act of war took place against a NATO country based on an anonymous source repeated by a reporter at his doctor’s appointment after a 10 minute conference.
There are a lot of less impressive mistakes that litter the media like tiny badges of shame.
But that is what always happens when radicals take an institution, a practice or a profession and turn it into the means for achieving a glorious utopian end. The means are ultimately disposable and like flyers and signs left behind afterward at an Earth Day rally, journalism, and so much else of our culture, has been used and then discarded in the cultural wastebasket.
The media complains that no one trusts its authority or respects its hard work. What authority and what hard work? The current dean of traditional journalism is Dan Rather: a hack who took part in an attempt to torpedo George W. Bush’s reelection campaign with Vietnam War documents produced in Microsoft Word. And his younger peers make him look good.
It’s not just that the media lies all the time in the service of its cause, but that its wretches no longer have the skill or even understanding to tell the lies apart from the truth.
And so they simplify matters in the timeless fashion of extremists by declaring everything they believe to be the truth and everything that they disagree with to be a lie. Or disinformation.
Faced with Hunter Biden’s laptop, they phone up a few experts from their contact list who tell them what they want to hear and the media proclaims it’s Russian disinformation. Faced with actual Russian disinformation accusing Trump of frolicking with prostitutes in Moscow, they cheerfully amplify it as loudly as they can. And they are too dumb to even know any better.
Like their old Pravda predecessors in Moscow, they don’t know anything except the party line. Woke generals can’t win wars, but can recite equity pledges. Woke CEOs lose money, but talk about their commitment to ESG. Woke journalists don’t know whether the story they’re about to work on is true or false and have no concept of any objective truth. Only the party’s truth.
Wokeness is institutional and professional rabies. And the media is spreading it with every bite.
On target synopsis of the current state of media brought to us by an education system in name only. This kind of lazy stupidity marching in lockstep through our civilization is by design. The long term goal of Marxists to turn citizens into sheep to be sheared. A couple of more generations like this and H.G. Wells’ Eloy will look like crusaders.
Couldn’t agree more. However, I think we should embrace thr power of “and.” Our journalists are lazy and imcompent alright. But I also think that a lot are also, “reporters who happen to think that Communism was a disappointing failure that needs to be tried again.” Unlike “their old Pravda predecessors in Moscow,” our “journalists” don’t risk being put on their knees in the basement of Lubyanka prison with a pistol at their neck for a story that doesn’t toe The Party line. Our’s lie for The Party willingly, even eagerly, and get paid and awarded for doing so.
When the square peg doesn’t fit the round hole, the DNC media simply cut corners until it does fit.
What’s no longer surprising, is that these fools will brag about lying to get the “right” story into the headlines. Hence, romance novelist Ben Rhodes trumpeted to his gullible audience how he invented the “moderate imams” in Iran falsehood to the press.
It’s not even a 2nd thought that the media will reliably repeat any bullshit necessary to enable B. Hussein to ship pallets of cash to not-so-moderate imams to Iran – money that not-a-warhero Kerry had to admit would be used to kill U.S. servicemen.
Job well done, Ben Rhodes. (Too bad his boast was recorded. Conservatives took note; journalists didn’t give a damn.)
Reason in the service of the narrative, isn’t that what a religion actually does?
If the conclusions of reason contradict the faith then reason is rejected, silenced, put back on the shelf. During the Christian Dark Ages reason was sometimes used and sometimes acceptable but only in areas and instances where reason was not a threat to the Christian narrative.
The West is now collapsing back to a culture where reason is diminished to the position of being the mere handmaiden of an irrational narrative.
“Western civilization was the child and product of reason—via ancient Greece. In all other civilizations, reason has always been the menial servant—the handmaiden—of mysticism. You may observe the results. It is only Western culture that has ever been dominated—imperfectly, incompletely, precariously and at rare intervals—but still, dominated by reason. You may observe the results of that.” – Ayn Rand
The reason I never read your posts, is that they say the same thing almost every time.
So why bother.
Still racking up the downvotes. All you do is insult us
Thanks Daniel, insightful article, very well said.
On the local level, the political analysis in the local newspapers has no congruence with reality that I’ve seen.
Or they are just spreading propaganda for the Progressives.
We used to joke that students majored in journalism because they couldn’t pass math classes. Actually that is true of a wider range of other majors also. They have to dumb down the math and statistics in even some supposedly harder sciences so the students can pass. That may be why some of the medical research or pronouncements from medical bureaucrats is so bad.
When I was going through the steps for a Associate Degree, all programs of the college mandated a ‘Speech’ course. Like all other course, it went for the semester and had each student give an speech. It was far too simple for me, and the instructor clearly had an personal agenda that formed her course. I was always told I got an A for each speech, but each one was just one point over the number for the grade. Other than that the course was a joke. Silly was a good word for it. But, there again – most of the courses I did was so dumbed down, and several times fellow students asked why wasn’t I teaching the course. The material was interesting when I spoke about the material coming up in the next test. Tutored for an semester, and they needed someone who could tutor someone for Philosophy. I have never taken the subject in an formal sense, but lifetime of reading and thinking was there. I asked for the textbook – to review what the instructor was using, and did the job. Strange thing was – no one (by the rule) could tutor for a course if the tutor hadn’t taken the course. Seems they had no one they thought could do, and I was useful. Stupid is the story of today’s college.
And I agreed – many of the things we hear today is the crop coming from the lack of a actual education.
congruence with reality is a very on the mark expression for what we are seeing.
The.legacy media is radical woke and lazy
If you’re going to call the media stupid–and undoubtedly they are–it probably doesn’t help your cause to refer to them in the singular. It’s the media “are,” not the media “is.”
“.Wokeness is institutional and professional rabies.”
That could not have been put any better.
Jpurnalists are so stupid they don’t realize that’s why they were hired.
They’re all educated… they have certificates which proves how smart they are…
“Get an education”! <<< into stupidity…
If their certificates were round and came in rolls, they would be useful.
Today’s diplomas are meaningless. The current crop of presstitutes are
historically ignorant and incapable of critical thinking. Did I just list two important qualifications
to join the corrupt and complicit media?
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.” –
Albert Einstein
J-School is for students who cannot hack the intellectual rigors of a Physical Education Degree.
Who actually BUYS a newspaper?? I mean the PHYSICAL version? I highly doubt many of the FAITHFUL DEMOcrat voters would pick one up other than to wipe their butts after abusing a public street! It’s the internet versions that must be the disseminators of manufactured lies!! And REALLY, are we to believe that those in the tank for the DEMOcrats are using their time online reading NEWS?? No, most likely they are on twitter and tiky toky looking for people even MORE stupid than they are! THAT is why the ONLINE CENSORSHIP had to be so universal and ONE SIDED!! If all you were ever told was “sauerkraut” is yucky so you never tried it because that’s what you’ve been told then you’d never know how good it is with a kielbasa!! There needs to be CONSEQUENCES for publishing KNOWN FALSE information! THAT is NOT what our 1st Amendment was designed to protect! STUPID IS PROTECTED!! FRAUD is NOT!! The LEFT has a big problem with TRUTHS! They tend to go with STUPID and FRAUD!
Here in Canada things are even worse. During the Freedom convoy protests, the Trudeau government was basing their reactions to things by what the media was reporting. This was instead of listening to CSIS or the RCMP who were generally saying that there was no threat to national security.
The media said there was a threat, so the government had to invoke the Emergency Measures Act to stop the protests. It seems like circular reasoning where the government tells the media what to report, and then the government acts based on media reports.
I totally agree with you MF. Trudeau and his cabal are subsidizing the media very generously here so naturally the bribed media only report their side of a story. In the last seven years since Trudeau was installed in this country, Canada has moved away from being one of the most democratic countries in the world to now an authoritarian regime just like those commie countries that he so openly admires. It is both the media and Jag Singh who are keeping Trudeau in power as the imperial ruler..
Although much of the media is super stupid, there is a deliberate intelligence churning out these idiot monsters.
Think Sauron making Uruk-hai soldiers who would march in broad daylight where the Orcs could not.
They are tools of destruction, created and nourished by a destroying evil. The fact they can survive and make lots of money is our fault. We need to redevelop intolerance and a spirit of righteous rebellion, even vengeance. We must withdraw our consent to and tolerance for evil.
Great video, thanks.
Now I’m very interested in learning about the life of Ernest Shackleton, for sure.
Mr. Oliver says many good things and a few things I disagree with but overall a very good video.
One disagreement I think is necessary to point out is that fiat money is not necessarily fraudalent under Free Market Capitalism conditions. In fact fiat money is necessary as a means for economic growth. So long as the bank fully discloses what it is doing, how much gold and silver reserves it has compared to its paper receipts, and that ratio is within the parameters of prudent risk, and the banker is free from government coercion forcing him to lend money recklessly (the Housing Bubble Boom and Bust of 1998-2008), and the bank depositor is comfortable with the degree of risk and freely agrees to it, there is no fraud being committed.
Although a fully private bank under Free-Market Capitalism can be or become fraudalent (men are always free to become criminals and bank depositor beware), it is fiat money under the control of government that always, inevitably, inexorably, becomes fraudalent.
“Money Creation: Who Cares?” – by Jim Brown
https://www.capitalismmagazine.com/2022/09/money-creation-who-cares/
I guess we will have to read about your expertise in Shackleton now
Yeah, he posts something that is covered in Economics 1a like it is news, after which I can’t bear to read the rest.
I can just hear Lee Tracy in a 30s newspaper movie saying “This story’ll blow the lid off the whole town!”
Sorry but at his point Pravda was more honest. Hunter S Thompson’s scathing definition long ago of what a journalist vis long ago was timeless and accurate. Can’t post it here because it is so nasty I would be banned from posting anything again. Look it up your selves.
We can be thankful for young Mr. Greenfield and a small handful of other old-fashioned “shoeleather journalists” (an old-fashioned phrase), those who actually tread the pavements of our cities and travel the vast information superhighways, wearing out their shoes and their eyesight for whatever they can find, and take the time to tease the truth out from all of that information. These are the only people who can be called journalists in our debased age, and they are cultural treasures.
OUTSTANDING! TRUTH at LAST!!!!
Lenin clarified in a few words WHY? the phrase “Stupid is Stupid” when applied to the Left, “FASCISTIC Socialists”/AMERICAN MARXISM and their Gaggle/Party of INSANITY ANTI-AMERICANISM FRAUD THE BIG LIES & totalitarianism with “The West will selol us the rope to HANG them.”
Perfectly described, Daniel my good friend!
Dan Blather and Tom Brokejaw
I should not talk as I am the typo queen but reading “the news” its so different today. There are seemingly no editors. Stories have every sort of error, grammatical, run on sentences, etc.
We had a “ hold up” of a drug store in our rural/suburban area by some thugs from an urban area. Thats very unusual here and so a journalist could have written about it and held our interest. Because the thugs drove away from the scene on a local parkway. The article had one paragraph about the robbery and several paragraphs about the history of that parkway! It was bizarre. Some baby journalist copied their homework from wikipedia or some other source and padded the article by writing about ‘local roadways and their origins.’
Ive never seen anything like it. Freshman English, indeed. High school freshman.
They save money by cutting back on the editing.
Another thing they do is rely on spellcheckers. I often see the wrong word which is there because it passed the spellchecker.
Great article that pulls no punches. We are a nation in rapid decline unless we reverse course soon. Wokeness is killing America.
Everything I’ve seen Daniel write is outstandingly brilliant. What I wouldn’t give to spend a day conversing with him, finding what makes his greatness tick. God bless him, like He does with his name דניּאל =God is my judge..
thank you, that;’s really kind of you to say
Blah blah blah, why don’t you stop complaining about it and offer a better alternative produce to consumers? If your product is better it will eventually win out. Now stop your bellyaching and get to work!