The Monkey At The Typewriter

A thousand monkeys pecking away at typewriters will never write Hamlet. Even if one did, it wouldn’t make him Shakespeare. But one will eventually come near enough that he will be considered a great playwright by those who want to believe. And once someone is convinced a monkey is a genius, good luck trying to convince them otherwise.

When the monkey types “to pee or not to pee,” his defenders will say “oh, we knew what he meant to type, stop making a big deal over a little typo.”

I get it, the idea of a monkey typing great works is so cool that people just want to believe it. And when you want to believe in something, signs start appearing all around you.

And monkeys, like other animals, are good at picking up cues. There once was a man who believed he had taught his horse to do math because he would ask it a question like “What’s 3+4?” and the horse would paw at the ground the correct amount of times. It wasn’t until the matter was studied by others that it was discovered the owner was giving the horse an unnoticed cue when he wanted it to stop. Predictably, the horse’s owner didn’t believe the explanation and continued to believe his horse was as talented in mathematics as he.

Same thing with my dog. She just seems to know what’s up even before I say “Wanna go for walkies?” I love my dog, but I’m pretty sure she’s neither a genius nor psychic. She’s just responding to some cue I’m giving her I’m unaware of.

And same with the monkey. It is looking for a cue on how people react. Most monkeys don’t give a shit about how people perceive them, but some monkeys crave attention. Some monkeys want to be the star of the whole damn circus, even if it means biting the truly talented performers in the ass just to get a laugh. The monkey is appealing to the cheap seats.

So the monkey sits at its typewriter and bangs out a hole bunch of crap. Most of it is gibberish, but it doesn’t matter. The gibberish is tossed aside by those looking for a line that comes close enough to “To thine own self be true.” And once the monkey realizes it has a winner on its hands, he’s going to type it over and over so long as people continue to give him approval.

So how does one dissuade another that a monkey is not Shakespeare? Sadly, it can’t be done. And the more you point to the pages of nonsense the monkey has written, the more the true believer will read method in the madness. You’ll just have to be patient, I’m afraid. Saps wake up eventually, they just need to do it in their own time and in their own way. Nobody likes to admit that they’ve been had, least of all by a monkey. The more you call them stupid and the more you point out the typos the monkey makes, the more they will dig in their heels. It will happen, though. You’ve got to know that, right? Or is it possible that you might be giving the monkey a little more credit for his talents than he deserves?

Like my writing? Please follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.

The Russian Bounty Story Is Pretty Stupid If You Think About It (You Won't)

If for one brief moment you were to question what you have been told by anonymous agents who offer no evidence, you might find some holes in the narrative provided to you by the media. Indulge me for a moment while I point out a few.

The story: Russia offered bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. troops

If Russia had wanted the Taliban to kill U.S. troops, it would have given them what they required, not what they already had in abundance. A question for you all: does anybody wish to argue that the Taliban requires motivation to kill U.S. troops? Isn’t that why we hate them in the first place, because they hate us? Weren’t we told they hate us for our freedom?

If they hated us and wanted to kill us prior to 9/11, do you think their hatred has abated since then? Do you think thousands of drone strikes and a 19-year war on their own soil are not motivation enough? Do you not think Trump dropping MOAB (Mother Of All Bombs) on the Taliban might not motivate them more than anything the Russians could do? And do you think Putin talked Trump into doing that?

No, Taliban soldiers don’t need frequent killer cards stamped by Putin, or any other kind of motivator. Ask any Taliban fighter, and he’d likely tell you that if you want to help them kill U.S. and allied soldiers, give them weapons and let them do what they do best.

Think about it: if you wanted someone dead, and you knew some psycho who also wanted that person dead, would you pay that person, or would you simply leave a weapon handy for that person and let nature take it’s course? If you pay him to do the job, you just might be implicated for your part in the crime. But provide access to a weapon, and you have plausible denial.

That’s what the U.S. does all the time. Look at how much advanced weaponry we’re selling to Ukraine. We didn’t even hide it, we proudly celebrated it. One of the central arguments the Democrats had against President Trump at his impeachment trial is that he temporarily suspended arms shipments to Ukraine that were to (allegedly) be used to protect them from Russia. Hell, we’re the largest exporter of military equipment in the world. We even supply weapons to people we’re supposed to be against.

If Russia wanted the Taliban to kill U.S. troops, they would arm them, not try to motivate them. This is so obvious I would be shocked if anyone bothered to argue with me.

Why, then would our intelligence agencies say Russia was offering bounties to kill U.S. troops if they could provide no evidence? I can’t say for sure, but it wouldn’t surprise me too greatly to learn that Russia WAS supplying arms to our enemies. Hell, if WE are supplying arms not only to Russia’s enemies but our own as well, it would be kind of weird if Russia wasn’t selling a little something something to The Taliban. Russia is, after all, the world’s second largest arms supplier. Behind the U.S.

So why a pronouncement that Russia is offering bounties? Shock value. It’s pretty clear. Accusing—or even, God forbid, providing evidence—that Russia sold weapons to our enemies would make them no more guilty than our government is. And it makes them look less stupid, because they aren’t selling arms to ISIS. Offering bounties, on the other hand, while making no sense, would make them appear especially evil.

That does sound pretty, evil, doesn’t it? Yeah, it does. It also sounds undeniably stupid. And while you might make the case that Putin’s Russia is evil, you cannot convince me that Putin is stupid. But if anyone wants to try, be my guest.

You could make some convoluted explanation that that’s how evil people do things: they just don’t care how they are perceived. They laugh in the face of international opinion, spitting in the rest of the world's eye and defying them to stop them. 

That’s not a realistic argument. Hitler was as evil as they come but even he was pretty thoughtful about how he presented himself to the world. Nobody really knew the true horrors of his death camps until they were liberated. Generally, people only act this way in narratives concocted by intelligence agencies, narratives that are used as propaganda to promote their nation’s agendas.

The same picture was painted of Saddam Hussein in the buildup to the Iraq War. Saddam was undeniably evil. But he was not stupid. He wasn’t the guy portrayed to us by our government. He did everything possible to avoid the U.S.’s intent to overthrow him. Evil dictators are pretty smart when it comes to self-preservation.

Same thing with President Assad in Syria. Again, not a nice guy, but not bath-salts-eat-the-face-off-a-guy-while-the-police-are-watching kind of crazy. Which is what he would have had to have been to use chemical weapons on his own people at the very moment when victory seemed most assured. I heard the desperate attempts to explain why Assad would do this in the Washington Post and The New York Times, and they boiled down to the idea that he did it out of sheer evil intent. Again, this works in comic books and propaganda, but in real life, not so much.

The idea that Putin paid bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. soldiers has no precedent I’m aware of in history, though there are countless instances of such stories being used for propaganda purposes by our own and other governments that are intent on aggression against other nations. This alone strongly suggests which way we should lean in judging the veracity of the narrative. The fact that no evidence is provided to back such claims, and the fact that they are accepted so readily by so many, is ample evidence of the power propaganda techniques have always had.

Like my writing? Please follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.

Advice To Democrats From A Vermin Supreme Voter

First off, let me say that the headline was not 100% truthful and was merely used to grab your attention. I have not as yet firmly committed myself to voting for Mr. Supreme, I’m still hoping a more appealing third-party candidate arises.

But will I vote for Vermin Supreme if he is the only option besides Donald Trump and Joe Biden? You betcha.

It won’t pay for me to try to convince you why I’d vote for a guy who wears a boot on his head rather than the Democratic Party’s candidate, just as it will avail you nothing to tell me how I’d be insane not to vote for a racist/imperialist in undeniable cognitive decline. I’m just here to share some facts with you in the hopes that your next presidential candidate is less morally repugnant than the last two have been.

You see, while I broke with the Democratic Party after voting for Bill Clinton in 1992 and feeling very dirty about myself, I’m not above voting for the lesser of two evils. While I voted Green in 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2016, I did vote for President Obama in 2012. The Republicans seemed especially odious that year and Obama, while still evil, was a poke in the eye, not necessarily of Mitt Romney, but of the Republican base.

So my vote IS attainable, but it isn’t a guaranteed lock Democrats can rely on no matter how bad a candidate they put forth, and no matter how badly they manipulate the system to keep a candidate I like from ever winning. You can’t expect me to vote election after election not for a candidate but merely against one. My thought is if we unconditionally give our vote to the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party will just get worse and worse. Time seems to have borne this out. And so I offer you—not advice—but facts from which you can begin to piece together the reality you now face.

You’ve rallied the troops. The core of Democratic voters hate President Trump more than they hate cancer. They hate him more than they hate virtually anyone or anything in the entire history of the world, with the possible exception of Vladimir Putin. Which is odd, because eight years ago Obama would have told you the 80’s were calling and they want their foreign policy back.

Unfortunately, the core of Democratic voters are not enough to beat Trump. At least they weren’t in 2016. Granted, four years of Trump undoubtedly peeled away some of his support, but the Democrats still need to do something more than rile up the base. It serves no purpose to continue to beat a horse that is already running in the direction you want it to go with all the speed it can muster. The problem is, that horse has been beaten into such a frenzy it has become rather frightening to those outside the base

Your job is to garner whatever votes you can that are outside of the core Democratic constituency. You have failed miserably at this. The only votes you might be gaining have nothing to do with your efforts but with the undeniable fact that Trump is an incompetent and unlikeable president.

I’m trying my best to provide you not with opinions—to which you are immune—but with facts, which just might make you stop and ponder for a moment. Because you need to consider what your reactions to date have looked like to those whose votes you require to achieve your great purpose in life: defeating Trump. They look a little something like this:

Speaking as one to the left of the Democratic Party, they frighten me. Deeply. Existentially. They disturb me so greatly that I am constantly vacillating between which idea frightens me more, a Trump re-election or a Biden presidency.

The Russiagate narrative has captured the soul of the Democratic Party the way the fear of witches captured the soul of Salemites in the 17th Century. This troubles me for the following reasons:

1. It is used as an excuse for continued U.S. imperialism and militarism and is a real threat to global peace.

2. It is used as an excuse for censorhip.

3. It has allowed people to think that presenting the assertions of anonymous agents within intelligence agencies is proof of anything, an idea that is about as Orwellian as you can get.

Now while I have briefly veered from facts to opinions, let me circle back and say that it is a fact that these opinions are widely held by the very voters the Democratic Party will need to beat Trump and regain the Senate. Below are some examples of the view from outside Democratic orthodoxy:

Here is the view from the left of the Democratic mainstream, a voting bloc you need: https://www.mintpressnews.com/afghanistan-bounty-scandal-comes-at-suspiciously-important-time-us-military/269138/

Here is the view of the Black Left, a voting bloc you need: https://www.blackagendareport.com/freedom-rider-russia-afghanistan-and-big-lie?fbclid=IwAR1BMUIWLKRkIDTVPT08t5QixX44ufMtkobl2rUk5be5y_Rv9qKsZcjcGR4

Here is an article taken from the Ron Paul Institute, whose libertarian voters could be swayed by an alternative to Trump that had something more to offer than perpetual hostilities and military entanglement, a bloc that takes civil liberties very seriously and is appalled at attempts at censorship: http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2020/june/30/russiagate-s-last-gasp/

This is the view from the conservative side of things, not all of whom are thrilled with Trump and could be wooed by an alternative: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/three-glaring-problems-with-the-nyt-russian-taliban-bounty-story/?fbclid=IwAR1e-LJX9EL5haFm5713rQs-8lQTt2ECdCAsSx4MZXRNVE4j9uPEbRukugk

These are the opinions you must accept others as having. They are held by millions of people who otherwise might be willing to consider voting Democrat. You cannot permit yourself to shut them out. Censoring them will not cause them to go away nor will calling people who have them "Putin puppets" endear them to your cause or help in your professed goal of ousting Trump from office. These are facts I present to you, ignore them at your own peril.

Like my writing? Please follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.

What A New York Times Editor Looks Like

The New York Times is arguably THE newspaper of note. “All the news that’s fit to print” reads their motto. As a child I knew this to be a serious newspaper because it didn’t have a comics section. As a young adult, I knew it to be an intelligent publication because their crossword puzzle was so much harder than any other paper’s. And from that time to now, I always had an idea of those in charge of the newspaper, an unknown and unknowable group of intellectuals who came from the very best schools and worked their way up the ranks to at last sit at the peak of the journalistic mountain. Journalistic gods who could not be questioned but only admired.

When I imagined an editor at the Gray Lady, I pictured…well, a gray lady. Or a gray man. Someone seasoned by a career in journalism. Someone who had seen it all, who had travelled throughout the world and gotten to know the most influential and interesting people on the planet.Someone who had sat in trenches with soldiers in wartime and been witness to the suffering of ordinary people as the great events of our age played out. And then I watched this interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpurFfcSNfU&t=190s

This is Bari Weiss, opinions page editor for The New York Times. Not at all what I had imagined. 

The very first words out of her mouth set the tone: “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know who can beat him (Donald Trump)”. It is a window into her soul. Clearly it is the horse race that is of primary concern to her, not issues. Eleanor Roosevelt said “Great minds discuss ideas; average ones discuss events; small minds discuss people.” Hers is obviously not a great mind, and it could be argued that it is not the event itself but the outsized personality of Trump that demands her attention.

Obvious too is her vested interest in the subject. She does not sit back as would be expected of an editor, apart from and above the fray, objective like any professional journalist should be. There is a clear bias in her viewpoint, which Joe Rogan cleverly feeds.

The next time she opens her mother to speak, it is do say: “Duh”.

Her third utterance begins with a repeat of her first: “I don’t know who can beat him right now. And I’m sc… I don’t know.” It’s pretty apparent she was about to say “I’m scared”, and then stopped, remembering that as a journalist she’s not supposed to insert her own emotions and feelings into her writing or speech.

Keep in mind now we are discussing an editor of the opinions section for the most prestigious newspaper in the United States, not some gum-cracking secretary for The Enquirer. One would assume she has beaten out virtually every other person with a journalism degree in the country. Chris Hedges isn’t even worthy of a job with the NYT.

Okay, now fast forward to one and a half minutes in, when Joe Rogan mentions Tulsi Gabbard as one of those running in the Democratic primary. There is an immediate reaction from Bari, and she utters the word “montras (mispronunciation of monstrous)”. Clearly she has deeply felt opinions of why Tulsi is a bad candidate. Let’s listen to her explain them.

“Monstrous…ideas.”

“She’s an Assad toady.”

Joe Rogan: “What’s that mean? What’s a toady?”

At this point Berri is uncertain of her own argument, even though she is so obviously viscerally attached to it. She looks off-camera for confirmation.

Berri: “I think that I used that word right. Jamie, can you look up what toady means?”

So obviously it is not a word she uses often. Hence, the statement “she’s an Assad toady” is not a position she came to on her own but rather she is parroting what she has heard another or others say. She then hammers home her unfamiliarity with the word she just used by misspelling it to Jamie: “t-o-a-d-i-e”. Keep in mind she works in print journalism. At America’s premier newspaper. As an editor.

Joe Rogan: “What does that mean?”

Berri: “I think it means what I think it means.”

Whenever you see someone expressing thoughts in words they are not familiar with, it is because they are expressing thoughts they did not think themselves. To further the point that the argument she makes did not evolve from actual thoughts in her own mind, she answers Joe Rogan’s question “So she’s an Assad sycophant, is that what you’re saying?”

Berri: “Yeah, that’s pr-…that’s known.”

So obviously it’s proven and known, but to whom? If it was proven and known to Berri, she would have facts or arguments to back up such an assertion, right? I mean, she is the editor of the opinions page of The New York Times. Who on this planet should be more qualified to back up a statement with a compelling and fact-packed argument? But that is not the case, so it’s simply that she has her opinion on good authority. In other words, she as a journalist and editorial writer and editor, is doing nothing more than parroting the opinions of others, the very opposite of what one should expect from someone in her position. She is not a free thinker providing perspective and facts to other free thinkers, she is part of a chain of command that funnels down the official position from her bosses to her readers.  I’m guessing there have been no opinion pieces in the New York Times about Tulsi Gabbard that does not call her a toady or at least imply it.

I do not accuse her of being a censor. She’s just not that bright or self-aware. It is clear from the interview she thinks she’s a real journalist. She’s assuredly received enough pats on the head and “good girls” from those above her to believe what she’s doing is quality work in the same vein as Edward R. Murrow, Molly Ivins, or H. L. Mencken. But if she had the same desire to dig for and share the truth as them, she would not be where she is now.  

Bari Weiss has very strong opinions without any idea of why she has them. One would be tempted to say she was unfit to run a high school newspaper but she is precisely the kind to be chosen: the kind who will never ever rock the boat or inconvenience power. She has proven herself time after time in a system that weeds out the trouble makers, the free thinkers, and the truth tellers. Hell, she doesn't even seem capable of standing on equal footing while talking politics with a guy who had people eat bugs on Fear Factor and does commentary on cage fighting. 

Take one more look. This is the best of the best, the crème de la crème corporate media has to offer. Now look at what indie journalism and indie commentators have to say, and tell me which impresses you more, which is more deserving of your time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS-sxJFn6O0&t=876s

Like my writing? Please follow me on Twitter or Facebook, sign up for my newsletter, or check me out on Amazon.