Betrayal

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Recent events make it quite clear, if it wasn’t already, that a high percentage of American media people–print, television, and Internet–have been involved in a multilevel betrayal:

–They have betrayed their supposed professional responsibilities to the truth, which they frequently assert to claim credibility and moral superiority.

–They have betrayed the American people through their frequently misleading and often outright false reporting. They saw Biden’s mental state on a regular basis, and either convinced themselves that they weren’t seeing what they were actually seeing, or flat-out lied.

–Given the importance of the United States in world affairs, they have betrayed not just Americans, but the people of the world. Issues of war and peace, prosperity or want, well-being or starvation for billions of people are affected by US policies and leadership.  The US possess the world’s most powerful military and its most devastating nuclear arsenal.  Thanks in large part to media irresponsibility, this is now under the control of a man who is in severe cognitive decline.  There are probably times in the typical Biden week when he could be convinced that the nuclear Gold Codes are things that he needs to provide to get a special discount deal on his favorite ice cream.

–This point is of lesser importance than the others, but given the most of these media people work for publicly-traded corporations, they have betrayed the shareholders who own the enterprises which employ them. These traditional media have not been doing exactly brilliantly in readership/viewership and financial terms. It seems likely that with a little more balance and a little less ideology, they could be doing significantly better. But the journalists chose to put their personal political beliefs ahead of this responsibility as well as their other responsibilities.

I have previously quoted something said to me once by a wise executive:

When you’re running a large organization, you aren’t seeing reality.  It’s like you’re watching a movie where you get to see maybe one out of a thousand frames, and from that you have to figure out what is going on.

If this is true about running large organizations–and it largely is–it is even more true for the citizen and voter in a large and complex country.  The individual can directly observe only a small amount of the relevant information, for the rest–from the events on the border to international and military affairs–he is generally dependent on others.  And that gives those others–those who choose the frames and the sequence in which they are presented in the movie analogy–a tremendous amount of power.

The rise of the Internet has provided an alternative to the information dominance of the traditional media, but social media has tended to reestablish centralized control points.  It is extremely fortunate–may indeed be lifesaving–that Elon Musk acquired Twitter (now X) and has established a relatively uncensored policy on that platform. Substack, too, appears so far to be a truly open platform.  AM/FM broadcast radio has also played a relatively independent role, but this appears to be under threat by acquisition of large numbers of stations by Soros interests…and, potentially, given that radio has long been government-regulated, by legislation and FCC regulation under any free-speech-unfriendly administration and Congress.

A big part of the problem is the ‘professionalization’ of media. Journalists once tended to be blue-collar people making their way up in the world; now, they tend more toward being Ivy League graduates, fully inculcated into all the correct ‘progressive’ attitudes.  And, ever since Watergate, people entering the media field tend to see themselves not so much as observers and analysts, but as participants in government–even as kingmakers.

The 1954 novel Year of Consent, which I reviewed here, posits a future United States which–while still nominally a democracy–is really controlled by those who control the communications and specialize in influence of public attitudes. It seems disturbingly prescient.

 

 

 

The Tar-Baby

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Never mind the currently-fashionable bit of wokery in the link explaining this reference, bolting on a vague accusation of racism (or raaaaacism) onto anything that a person of pallor says, does, or references – the metaphor of something nasty sticking harder and more firmly no matter how one tries to fight it off and disengage is curiously valid in the case of Joe Biden and the National Establishment Press.

The realization that Mr. Biden is a couple of sandwiches short of a full picnic comes as a horrible shocker … to practically no sane, non-partisan observer of the political scene for the past … I don’t know, decade? Two decades or more? But everyone else is shocked, horrified, discomfited! Until two weeks ago, he was almost universally painted by the National Establishment Press as the Sage of Scranton, honored and revered solon of the Senate, the experienced and steadying VP in the Obama Administration, a kindly and revered family man, beloved by all! (Or at least, somewhat better than that awful, bad, Orange Man!) Unthinkable, asking a blunt and unscreened question of the Incredible Talking Mop, Karine Jean-Pierre, at a White House press conference about Mr. Biden’s disintegrating mental facilities! The very notion – so rude, unprofessional, so very, very Deplorable!

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Who Are The Commissioners? (rereun, with updates)

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If you read English naval history, you are sure to run into a reference to The Commissioners for Executing the Office of Lord High Admiral.  Your first reaction is likely to be something like WTF?  Why couldn’t the Lord High Admiral execute the duties of his own office?  Lazy, much?

The way it worked, as I understand it, was like this:

Some of the time, there was no Lord High Admiral.  Hence, it was the duty of the Commissioners to do what a Lord High Admiral would/should have done if such an individual had existed.

At other times, there was indeed a Lord High Admiral, but his role was purely ceremonial, and the Commissioners were the ones who actually performed the duties of the office.

And at still other times, there was indeed a Lord High Admiral who did the admiral-type work.  I’m not sure whether in these cases, the Commissioners were still there to serve as assistants, or whether the Commission was temporarily suspended during the tenure of such admirals.

It strikes me that there is a certain parallel with the current situation in the US vis-a-vis Joe Biden.  One key difference being that the English people knew  who the Commissioners of the Admiralty were.  Yet while it has long been clear that Biden is getting a significant degree of direction and  ‘help’  in executing the duties of his office, we in America today don’t have a good understanding of who these helpers/directors might be.  This question has become increasingly pressing over he last couple of  weeks.

I don’t think there’s anything like a formal “cabal” for telling Joe Biden what to do.  Much more likely, we have a loosely-coupled set of influencers, with power even greater–much greater–than typical of a president’s inner circle.  Who are these people?  Barack Obama, certainly, and many members of the Obama administration: there is some truth to the statement that the Biden administration has really been the third Obama administration.  Doctor Jill Biden, playing the role of Edith Wilson. Ron Klain. Susan Rice. We can only guess who else, because the influencers are not a formal organization from whom transparency can be demanded. It is clear also that Biden is greatly influenced by prominent media figures and academics–clearly, he believes that it is very important to stand in well with the Ivy League:

Lemme tell you something Mr. Biden says, with a clenched jaw.  There’s a river of power that flows through this country.  Some people, most people, don’t even know the river is there. But it’s there. Some people know about the river, but they can’t get in, they only stand at the edge. And some people, a few, get to swim in the river. All the time. They get to swim their whole lives, in the river of power. And that river flows from the Ivy League.

Like many social climbers, Biden also cares a lot about what “Europeans” think.

Another major difference between our present situation and that of the administration of the Royal Navy:  Although the damage that the Commissioners of the Admiralty could do though mistaken decisions was quite substantial: “ships sunk, sailors lost, colonial possessions lost, possibly in the worst case an invasion of England itself,” there was no danger that a bad decision on their part would destroy the entire world.  That is not the case with the potential damage that could be done by bad advice from our present  “Commissioners.”

Last October marked the 60st anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It is now pretty clear that, despite the previous claims of some of the involved individuals, JFK stood almost alone against the advice of his advisors, including his brother Bobby, who insisted on air strikes and/or an invasion of Cuba. (See The Cuban Missile Crisis in American Memory, by Sheldon Stern, which makes extensive use of the now-declassified secret White House recordings.)  It is also pretty clear that the advisor-recommended reactions would have led to a very bad outcome, quite possibly including general nuclear war.

What are the odds that Biden would stand strongly against the almost-unanimous view of his advisors in a similar situation? I’d say it is pretty low.

Regarding the influence of Obama, @wretchardthecat wrote at X:

Like the dead hand of an ancient curse, Obama‘s vision, based on a now vanished world, will wreak a path of ruin until it finally collapses on the shambles of all it sought to transform…The once unipolar world is fractured — and is still fracturing — along two lines: the line of Great Powers, Russia, the West and China; and the line of civilizations, Islam and the West. Biden, now over 80, cannot hope to retrieve things in an Obama fourth term…

In less than two years, Biden and his “Commissioners” have done tremendous damage to the United States and the world.  It is hard to imagine that any future Democratic administration would not also be heavily subject to the influence of Obama and the other “commissioners” I mentioned above, leaving aside only Doctor Jill Biden.  The best hope of minimizing this damage lies in the potential for a Republican House and Republican Senate. True, many of the candidates are not what we would wish. But the best is the enemy of the good, and the issue of the moment is not establishing ideal policies but rather avoiding multiple catastrophes.

7/9/2024:  The events of the last two weeks make clear just how powerful the continuing influence of major media continues to be.  These people knew, or could have easily learned, the true situation with Biden, but they chose not to report it.  So most people, including those who think of themselves are “well-informed,” continued to be unaware of it.

 

See also:  Commissioner Doctor Jill Biden

What Happened to Serious Economic Policy Debates?

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Economic policy determines whether economies, and hence citizen real income grows nationally and how that income is distributed. The invisible hand of a market economy guides investment to its most profitable, hence most productive uses. Not so for the heavy hand of the state. The Soviet Union saved and invested five to six times as much as the US, but productivity lagged and the economy eventually collapsed. Taxpayers have some control over “public” investment performance at, e.g., the small private level (condo, coop) but voter influence declines as the distance and size of the governing body increases. Making national investment policy even more difficult is the fact that even highly productive public investment may not pay off until well into the future. While rational economic policy would devolve decision-making and funding to the lowest possible level, the federal government’s lack of a hard budget constraint allows it to fund without accountability. The Constitution’s enumerated powers has proven an insufficient constraint on this perverse political incentive.

 

During President Trump’s term, pre-pandemic, real wages rose steadily at about 2% reflecting the steady real economic growth, but fell under Biden by over 2% due to inflation. Black unemployment and poverty fell under Trump, and continued to fall under Biden. While Trump proposed deep budget cuts, the Congress passed essentially the Democrats’ budget under both Ryan and Pelosi. Trump passed what in the ’60s under Kennedy was called a Keynesian tax cut, now called a “voodoo economics” supply-side tax cut for the rich to spur business investment, that worked essentially as planned.

 

Trump takes undue credit for the good performance during his term, for which the main stream media (MSM) accuse him of lying. Biden does the same, for which the MSM cheers. Independent voters favor Trump over Biden by 45% to 34% on the management of the economy. Numerous Democratic commentators have speculated that voter mistrust of Biden reflects FOX fake news popping up on TV sets uninvited to brainwash unsuspecting viewers.

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Transmitting the Passwords – or Not

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I ran across a poem, said to have been written by the French aviator/writer Antoine de St-Exupery.

I don’t think St-Ex wrote this poem: I’m pretty familiar with his works and haven’t seen this poem in any of them, and it also doesn’t seem stylistically quite right.  I do, however, recognize the book and the passage that were surely the inspiration for the poem,  That would be his unfinished novel of ideas Citadelle, published in English under the unfortunate title Wisdom of the Sands.  (The reason the novel is unfinished is that St-Ex disappeared in 1944 while flying recon missions in a P-38 with the American forces)

Citadelle represents the musings of a fictional desert prince: on society, on government, on humanity.  Here are some excerpts from the relevant passage:

“Nevertheless,” I mused, “these men live not by things but by the meaning of things, and thus it is needful that they should transmit the passwords to each other, generation by generation.  That is why I see them, no sooner a child is born, making haste to inure him in the usage of their language; for truly it is the key to their treasure.  So as to be able to transport him into this harvest of golden wonders they have reaped, they spare no toil in opening up within him the ways of portage.  For hard to put into words, weighty yet subtle, are the harvests it behooves us to transmit from one generation to another.”

“..But if the new generation lives in houses about which it knows nothing save their utility, what will it find to do in such a desert of a world?  For even as your children must first be taught the art of music, if they are to take pleasure in playing a stringed instrument; even so, if you would have them, when they come to man’s estate, capable of the emotions worthiest of man, you must teach hem to discern, behind the diversity of things, the true lineaments of your house, your domain, your empire.

Else that new generation will but pitch camp therein, like a horde of savages in a town they have captured. And what joy would such barbarians get of your treasures?  Lacking the key of your language, they would know not how to turn them to account….(the barbarian) throws down your walls and scatters your possessions to the winds.  This he does to revenge himself on the instrument which he knows not how to play, and presently he sets the village on fire–which at least rewards him with a little light!  But soon he loses interest, and yawns. For you must know what you are burning, if you are to find beauty in its light.  Thus with the candle you burn before your god. But to the barbarian the flames of your house will say nothing, for they are not a sacrificial fire.”

“..This, too, is why I bid you bring up your children to be like you.  It is not the function of some petty officer to hand down to him their inheritance,; for this is something not comprised in his manual of Regulations..You shall build your children in your image, lest in late days they come to drag their lives out joyously in a land which will seem to them but an empty camping place, and whose treasures they will allow to rot away uncared-for, because they have not been given its keys.”

It strikes me that most of the institutions of America today–and also, I think, throughout much of the West–are acting, unconsciously or with intention, to inhibit the kind of password-transmission about which St-Ex wrote in the above passage.

I’m also reminded of something CS Lewis wrote, which I quote very loosely:  “If you want to destroy an an infantry unit, you cut it off from its adjacent units.  If you want to destroy a generation, you cut it off from its adjoining generations.”

Two earlier posts inspired by Citadelle:  When Sleep the Sentinels and Of Springs and Cables