Friends, speech has always been freer for some than for others. That is to say, while the Constitution guarantees us the right to say our piece, it doesn't give us the right to be heard, i.e. access to the platforms that control our national dialogue. Once upon a time, it was the Fourth Estate, or print journalism, that ruled the roost and choose which topics and which voices were "fit to print", as it were. These days, the mainstream media still has quite a bit of sway, but it's increasingly Big Tech that has the final word. After all, companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Meta can literally pull the plug on anyone who questions the verities they hold dear. And, if they don't actually silence very many people, they still hit the gas, or stomp on the brake pedal, often enough that they can play a decisive role in selecting the political, social, and economic path that we take, as a nation and, more and more, as a species. That's scary stuff.
And here's a case in point:
Tomorrow, you'll be treated to my latest article AND to my latest appearance on the Newsmaker Show. In other words, it's probably going to be the greatest day of your life -- not that I would ever dream of overselling it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here's a sneak peek at the topic of my forthcoming article, which was prompted by what Bernie Sanders had to say about moving to a four-day work week:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/opinions/32-hour-work-week-sanders/index.html
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I remember a poll of scholars taken in 2000 which asked them to name the most influential person of the preceding thousand years. Gutenberg was the winner. That result made very much historical sense to me. The effect of the printed word is perhaps incalculable; the astounding progress in human well being between 1000 AD and 2000 AD is largely the product of the change he wrought. So to think that electronic media is proving to manifest a change equally profound is very plausible and we may very well not know what we don't know about what it has in store for us. That and AI are probably going to create a presently unknowable life for us all. Their power misused could be terrifying in its consequences. Easily within the lifetime of many younger adults, the world I grew up in in the '50s may well appear unimaginable but for history.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Why, to suggest that perusal of your article on Sander's article would manifest the greatest day of our lives is perhaps eh, inadvisable (?). Now second greatest day; that makes perfect sense!
ReplyDelete". . . Sanders' proposal. . . " rather.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: A quick scan of the CNN screed told me what I expected. Sanders', who has spent most of his adult life in government or politics and has only haughty and ignorant contempt for the bottom line, would of course legally mandate this change and would celebrate any negative effect it would have on those who, after all, produce the jobs for which he arrogates such intent (eg. forcing employers to pay the same for less production, duhhh!) That the free market and modern technology could bring this about in a manner organic to our economy is a concept foreign to his ilk. FDR may have embodied in law a reality already tried and shown to be practical and workable. Sanders cannot abide that possibility; in traditional Marxist form he would dictate this NOW because, after all, its inevitable so why wait? Lenin would approve.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: To such as Sanders, our country is an evil anachronism and anything which hastens its punishment and "fundamental transformation" is just. He was there in the '60s when the new left thought it could work "revolution" in short order. The multitudinous boomers would provide the necessary worker ant cadre and the old left would graciously afford sage grave guidance. By 1972, Sanders and them could see it wouldn't work out that way. "OK, we'll hold our noses, go "establishment" and bring it crashing down from within, yeah, right on!" Bernie is a relic of those days and persists, like a termite, in undermining what he is, at core, loath to regard as other than a monstrous and doomed abomination. Like Hillary, age, that unbearably mundane leveller, is making him desperate; why he may never see the triumph of the agonizingly incipient totalitarianism of which he dreams. A pity that.
ReplyDeleteAh, the printing press! What wonders and what horrors it has wrought. Of course, it mattered relatively little when books were pricey and virtually no one could read. I'd say the Print Revolution of the 18th century was more consequential, and near universal literacy by the 20th century equally so. But then we get into the question of what gets published, and what gets read, and whose agendas are served in the process. Bottom line: we've democratized access to information as never before, and the elites are predictably fit to be tied as a result.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Jack -- the shift to a four-day work week could happen organically, and perhaps in some industries it already is. My impression, though, is that more and more workers are under overt/covert pressure to work more hours than they are actually compensated for. From what I hear, this problem is getting worse, and that's despite the laws in place to protect employees from this type of exploitation.
Hmm. Is Sanders a creature of the establishment, either at heart or in practice? That's hard to say. Remember, in 2016 and 2020, the establishment chewed him up and spat him out. Of course, he sucked it up and got his reward: a committee chairmanship. I'm not sure what to make of old Bernie, but I don't think he's a Marxist-Leninist. In fact, in a vague way both he and Trump are anti-establishment populists. It's Bernie's bad luck to be on the Left, which is steadily abandoning the "little guy" in favor of a technocratic elite.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I think Sanders is a creature of the establishment only in the ways it has forced him to act in order to maintain a post from which he can help work the destruction of despised America. His intent remains the same as it was in those good old Saul Alinsky inspired days in which the left cynically pushed the kumbayaa crowd aside and got down to business. Yes, he might well deny that he is a Marxist - Leninist; those new lefters affected patronizing disdain for the old bolsheviks back in those seminal '60s. But a commie is a commie is a commie. Sanders as a populist, maybe, but wasn't that an often seen ruse by those who once in power terribly oppressed just folks? Opportunistic carpetbaggers like him are a major reason Vermont has a "take back our state" movement .
ReplyDeleteHmm. To me Bernie doesn't seem very villainous. Hopelessly naive, yes. A complete sellout, sure. A "socialist" in the diet Marxism European tradition, you bet. Anyway, it doesn't much matter what he is, or what he's seen to be. What matters is the road that he and his ilk are leading us down, and you and I see that for what it is.
ReplyDelete