THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2023
This war is fought from the silos: As we recollected on Monday, the so-called Great War was fought from the trenches.
The war which followed was marked by the existence of the camps.
We refer to the extermination camps maintained by the madness of the Third Reich. They coexisted with the vicious forced labor camps which, when they're discussed at all, are known by the common term Gulag.
Along the way, a well-known writer issued a well-known phrase—"the banality of evil."
We wouldn't recommend the use of the more loaded term to describe the great civil war in which we're now engaged, but the era's banality is defined by the widely-ignored existence of the silos.
Our current war, the war of the silos, was well underway as of 6:06 this morning. At that time, on Fox & Friends, the highly telegenic Ainsley Earhardt recited, for the ten millionth time, her channel's BizzaroWorld account of the way "the president" went to Ukraine in 2016 and fired Viktor Shokin.
In this account, Shokin is described as an idealistic prosecutor, one who was threatening the corrupt arrangements of the Biden Crime Family. Earhardt failed to explain how Joe Biden, who was actually vice president at the time, could have arranged to force such a firing when he still held that junior position.
Earhardt told the preferred story for perhaps the ten millionth time. In this morning's New York Times, David French quickly tells the story as it's told from within the blue silo:
FRENCH (9/14/23): Some Republicans are pointing all the way back to the long-debunked claim that Joe Biden pressured the Ukrainian government to fire the Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin in part because the Ukrainian energy company Burisma was paying Hunter a lavish monthly consulting fee. (In reality, firing Shokin was a priority for both the Obama administration and its Western allies, and they wanted him terminated because he was ineffective at combating corruption, not because he was diligently pursuing Burisma.)
As far as we know, that actually is "the reality" of this particular incident. But people who live within the red silo have never heard the story told that way.
They've heard the story as Earhardt told it, and they've heard it ten million times. They don't know that basic facts are being omitted. Because Earhardt is one of their cable news "friends," they assume that her story is accurate.
(Anthropologically, our deeply flawed species is like that.)
At any rate, so goes in the ongoing war conducted from within dueling silos. Our own blue tribe hears from our own friends. The red tribe hears from theirs.
For people living within the red silo, that includes the ranting Mark Levin, a.k.a. "The Great One." It includes the four members of The Five who recently took turns talking over their program's lone liberal, Jessica Tarlov, as she attempted to tell the fuller story about the firing of Shokin.
This is the way a war is waged when it's waged from within dueling silos. Until recently, the rules of engagement were different.
In Monday's report, we recalled the shape of the prior regime. In the years before Jon Stewart struck, the red tribe's friends and the blue tribe's friends were forced to confront each other every single weekday night on the cable show Crossfire.
Viewers heard from the red tribe, then heard from the blue. There were no silos then.
Now, denizens of the dueling tribes hear from their own friends, and they hear from no one else. Here are the wages of this sick arrangement:
The people who watched Ainsley Earhardt this morning didn't know that they were hearing a highly selective tale.
Just last week, TV's Bill Maher authored a rather strange claim. He seemed to say that a certain amount of crazy was coming at denizens of the blue silo, from our own blue tribe's friends.
In fairness to Bill, he rejected the claim of equivalence all through his interview with TV's Ari Melber. But he said there's a fair amount of "crazy" over here in the blue silo too!
Is there any way that could be accurate? We'd have to say that the answer is yes—and that we're sometimes drawn to that conclusion by watching reports on Fox & Friends.
We know of no reason to go any further with this. In our view, the die has been cast.
The tribes have agreed that there must be a war. Under current arrangements, our political wars are now conducted within two dueling silos.
We don't know who will win next year's election, but it's harder and harder for us to believe that President Biden can win. Abnormal psychology being quite normal, there's no point in attempting to argue any particular part of this case. The hounds of hell within our blue silo will rise up to shout and yell.
In this morning's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof takes us all the way back to 1965, to the time when these tribal divisions began to take form. As he starts, he offers "a shower of caveats" concerning an issue he thinks we should discuss.
"Yet this is still so wrenching to discuss," he correctly says. "[E]ven today there is a deep discomfort in liberal circles about acknowledging these realities"—about acknowledging the alleged realities he says we need to discuss.
In our view, our own blue tribe is deeply involved in such flights from reality. Beyond that, we have little idea how we look to other people when we let our Storylines be created by the people who now commandeer our "liberal circles."
We've moved from the trenches and the camps over to the silos. Organs like the New York Times largely ignore this change in the rules of the game.
Red silo denizens have their treasured friends. Are our own blue tribe's friends actually that much better?
Tomorrow: Norman O. Brown meets Mitt Romney
This is an extraordinarily-bleak assessment. Are we going to discuss it rationally, or are the "hounds of hell within our blue silo" going to "rise up to shout and yell" us down?
ReplyDeleteI would argue the situation is in fact bleak
DeleteBlue skies, nothing but blue skies do I see.
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SAa4teWb0rU&pp=ygUKQmx1ZSBza2llcw%3D%3D
It seems silly to talk about "red silo" in this context ("Our own blue tribe hears from our own friends. The red tribe hears from theirs.").
ReplyDeleteBlueAnon narratives come out of every toaster and every dishwasher. They are like Big Brother in 1984. They are impossible to avoid.
“As far as we know, that actually is "the reality" of this particular incident.”
ReplyDeleteSo, the “view” from the liberal “silo” in this case, as told by the (“liberal”? Blue tribe?) New York Times is … the reality, which Somerby whimsically/not whimsically decided to put in quotation marks.
In other words, the view from the liberal silo in this case is simply the truth, which means it isn’t a view determined by being siloed off.
Note that Somerby goes to the New York Times, as he frequently does, and not a right wing media source, for the “reality” in this matter.
He gives no equivalent wrong belief that he claims comes from our “silo”.
How about this false belief: Dominion voting machines were rigged. Fox paid $787M because of that whopper. Why would anyone trust Fox after that?
Delete“our silo” refers to the blue tribe since Somerby is posing as a liberal. mh says Somerby offers no actual blue tribe silo-driven disinfo, after claiming equivalence.
Delete@Dogface George, 5:31 PM
DeleteAnd how about all the russiagate shit? Iraqi WMDs? The Havana syndrome? Hunter's laptop being Russian disinfo? The origin of COVID-19? Or this? I could go on.
Any reaction to these from inside your silo, in terms of trusting (or distrusting) various institutions?
“The hounds of hell within our blue silo will rise up to shout and yell”
ReplyDeleteThe concerns about the age of both candidates are all over mainstream media, including Stephanie Ruhle’s program last night on MSNBC. Somerby should be pleased to be in agreement with her. The “blue silo” to my knowledge exhibits no complacency about the upcoming election. The frequent “never Trump” guests on her and other hosts’ programs as well as many Democratic prognosticators are expressing unease. Somerby is wrong when he claims otherwise.
On the other hand, is Somerby saying, at this early stage, that Democrats should demand that Biden step down as the nominee? He has a solid record to run on. These fears about his age make a certain kind of sense, but it isn’t being oblivious to reality (or “the hounds of hell rising up”) to try to campaign for him and point out the good things about him, since he has apparently decided to run again.
If I want to jump on the “oh my god he’s too old, he’s going to lose” bandwagon, I could certainly add my voice to help unseat Biden, because it isn’t really helpful.
I would like to see Somerby quote an example of someone he considers a "hound of hell" from the left.
DeleteAn adult, maybe by the age of 25, is resigned to the fact that there is a certain amount of crazy anywhere you go. Well before the Trump years (when it intensified) there has been a certain amount of crazy in the writing of Bob Somerby. Often, quite a lot.
ReplyDeleteMaher’s business model has been to split everything down the middle. It’s also a sound approach for a satirist. But the bottoming out of reason and common decency on the right has had him saving a lot of stupid, dishonest things, dragging decent people into the mud to square the circle.
Somerby once called Kristof a moral scold:
ReplyDelete“Our Tribe’s Own Moral Scold: We aren’t huge fans of Nicholas Kristof’s twice-weekly New York Times columns.
In our view, Kristof is becoming a relentless moral scold—the type of scold who convinces people to stay away from liberals and progressives.”
http://dailyhowler.blogspot.com/2015/02/crucifying-kristof-nicholas-kristof.html?m=1
But now, when Kristof is scolding liberals, he is no longer a moral scold; he speaks the truth, apparently. It isn’t clear if his scolding of liberals is now suddenly convincing people to vote for liberals and progressives.
At any rate, Kristof does his usual “meta” shtick: He, a supposed liberal, won’t just talk about the issue, but talks about liberals not talking about it, thereby not really shedding any light on the supposed problem while getting in his liberal bashing cred.
I am old enough to remember how Kristof spent much of his career writing ignorant articles in support of sweatshops.
DeleteOof!
Later, he got trashed as neoliberals like himself started to lose favor, so he went carpetbagging to Oregon, where he owns a vineyard, and demanded he be made governor. He was laughed out of the state, he is not even a resident and thus unable to qualify as governor, but wouldn't you know it, he kept the $3million he raised.
Was Abraham Lincoln in a silo when he went all in for the Union and determined to crush the Confederacy? Was his view of “reality” skewed in some way?
ReplyDeleteHonest Abe was in the good silo.
DeleteLiberals should prepare themselves for war. Their ideas are better. They're smarter. They're more courageous and they believe in their ideas strongly enough to die for them. Who among us would not die today for our current liberal agenda?
ReplyDeleteWar is the forcing of will. And what could be greater than forcing our will and our superior agenda and morality on the savages?
DeleteHundreds of thousands will die. Yes, a lot of us will die. But in 20 years people will call Brown people Latinx.
Delete,(as nature intended)
Deletecrappy trolling
Deleteliberals don’t have guns
Hundreds of thousands died in just the last couple years because Republicans haven't a clue how to govern.
DeleteGet a grip, lonely guy.
Sorry pal, liberals "do not negotiate with terrorists". Thus, we are going to have to take up arms and kill them. What other choice is there? I am happy to die for our agenda.
DeleteIf there's one core theme of modern Democrats it is we do not have to engage in politics! People have to do what we say, when we say it, period, end of sentence, what part didn't you ...??? And when they don't, there's no other choice but to kill them. We do not negotiate with terrorists.
We do NOT interact with Republicans.
DeleteAsk any public intellectual, they tell ya the same thing.
Republicans are terrorists and must do what we want, when we want it. Period. End of sentence.
DeleteEither you believe all Republicans are bigots and terrorists or you don't. Why are you afraid? Why will you not stand up for what you believe? Are you seriously not ready right now, today, to go out and kill? Why not?
DeleteIt's so strange that the Democrats are surrounded by very very dangerous bigoted terrorists that are intent on overthrowing the government, they are threatening our very existence, yet some of us feel like we won't or don't want to kill them? I don't get it. What other options are there exactly?
DeleteIntellectuals, that are out there in the public, know one thing. Competing fractions in the largest political system in the world must never interact with each other. It just makes sense. Intellectually.
Deleteare surrounded by very very dangerous bigoted terrorists that are intent on overthrowing the government,
DeleteClemenza famously said in The Godfather that we should have stopped Hitler at Munich.
We should have stopped the fascist republicans at the Brooks Brothers riot. Instead we let them steal the election and install GW Bush, who ignored warnings and allowed us to be attacked on 9/11/01, which lead him to invade Iraq. The rest, as they say, is history.
gulag refers to a Soviet Russian reeducation and labor camp, not a German forced labor camp. Words matter.
ReplyDeleteGulag was not one camp, it was the Chief Administration of Camps.
DeleteIt can be plural or singular:
Delete"a system of labor camps maintained in the Soviet Union from 1930 to 1955 in which many people died.
a camp in the Gulag system"
Kamala Harris is the greatest politician in a generation.
ReplyDeleteWho is more brilliant: Kamala Harris or Ketanji Brown Jackson? I bet Kamala is.
DeleteHeather Cox Richardson, a leading public intellectual, says of how we should interact with contemporary Repubs: "do not negotiate with terrorists".
ReplyDeleteSomerby suggests the opposite, demonstrating both his ignorance and his lack of integrity.
The trolls here are out of control and spouting gibberish that is unhelpful to any discussion, much less a serious one
ReplyDeleteThe trolls' gibberish isn't much worse than Bob's.
DeleteWar on Gore.
ReplyDelete