On Sunday evening, CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss killed a 60 Minutes segment about men deported to El Salvador’s CECOT mega-prison—a story that had been screened five times, cleared by CBS attorneys, cleared by Standards and Practices, and was scheduled to air in less than three hours.
Oh, and not to mention that we have been warned through “science fiction” across so many different popular media; short stories, novels, TV shows, movies, and video games. You’d think people would take the hint, but Men in Black had it right: “People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”
Agreed. But not many people have read Hume (for me it’s been almost 40 years), but many, many people have seen at least one of those world controlling corporations in (fictionalized) action. And that’s by no means a complete list. US Robotics and Mechanical Men. Chronowerx. So many warnings.
I watched it and probably wouldn't have if it had been allowed to air, but I'm sure I would have read about it. All I'll say is a picture can indeed be worth a 1000 words.
Bari Weiss and CBS are perfect for one another. Both have lacked credibility for a long, long time. CBS is entertainment and advertising, not education, enlightenment, or civic empowerment. We should have learned better in 2016, when former CBS executive chairman Les Moonves told us what mainstream media was really about. He slipped talking about the Donald Trump candidacy: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."
The video interview was even more horrific than just what you quoted... that's ok. The sexual violence was beyond the pale. And now, is the Cover-Up going to be worse than the heinous crimes documented?
Thanks, Mike, for your post! I appreciate how, your timing, evidence... and your dedication- maybe especially more during the holidays!!
PS, your Epstein post was also excellent. There seems to be a theme this holiday season...
But this is not novel. Here's how Alexis de Tocqueville explained how privatized censorship works to "enslave [the soul]" inside the "tyranny of democratic republics":
"I know no country in which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America...
...In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever steps beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe [1], but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority which is able to promote his success. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he imagined that he held them in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he is loudly censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by remorse for having spoken the truth.
...Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved."
[1] note: "auto-da-fe" is de Tocqueville's contemporary but now-anachronistic term for being burned at the stake for the crime of heresy. The modern term, of course, is “cancel culture”, but the concept in democracies dates back at least as far as Athenian ostracism law and capital prosecutions of dangerous deviants such as Sokrates.
There's a reason that I define the name Oracle as an acronym: One Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison.
I grabbed the 1.4G .mp4 for my personal archive.
This is one time they aren't going to be able to quash the distribution.
Omni Consumer Products - Weyland Yutani - Buy N Large - Umbrella Corporation - Cyberdyne - you can’t say we weren’t warned. Repeatedly.
Hume tried to warn us more generally, hundreds of years ago.
Oh, and not to mention that we have been warned through “science fiction” across so many different popular media; short stories, novels, TV shows, movies, and video games. You’d think people would take the hint, but Men in Black had it right: “People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.”
Agreed. But not many people have read Hume (for me it’s been almost 40 years), but many, many people have seen at least one of those world controlling corporations in (fictionalized) action. And that’s by no means a complete list. US Robotics and Mechanical Men. Chronowerx. So many warnings.
The American Exceptionalism we all bought told us it couldn't happen here.
Oh, I love that you phrase it as a purchase of American Exceptionalism, rather than a belief, or a moral choice. So telling.
I watched it and probably wouldn't have if it had been allowed to air, but I'm sure I would have read about it. All I'll say is a picture can indeed be worth a 1000 words.
Bari Weiss and CBS are perfect for one another. Both have lacked credibility for a long, long time. CBS is entertainment and advertising, not education, enlightenment, or civic empowerment. We should have learned better in 2016, when former CBS executive chairman Les Moonves told us what mainstream media was really about. He slipped talking about the Donald Trump candidacy: "It may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS."
The video interview was even more horrific than just what you quoted... that's ok. The sexual violence was beyond the pale. And now, is the Cover-Up going to be worse than the heinous crimes documented?
Thanks, Mike, for your post! I appreciate how, your timing, evidence... and your dedication- maybe especially more during the holidays!!
PS, your Epstein post was also excellent. There seems to be a theme this holiday season...
Good luck chasing a video down on the web. Nothing disappears. All the king's horses and all the king's men kinda thing....
They are making even bigger fools of themselves now.
Your buddy coined “the Streisand Effect”? Good on him.
Thank you, Mike, for your eloquence.
But this is not novel. Here's how Alexis de Tocqueville explained how privatized censorship works to "enslave [the soul]" inside the "tyranny of democratic republics":
"I know no country in which there is so little true independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America...
...In America the majority raises very formidable barriers to the liberty of opinion: within these barriers an author may write whatever he pleases, but he will repent it if he ever steps beyond them. Not that he is exposed to the terrors of an auto-da-fe [1], but he is tormented by the slights and persecutions of daily obloquy. His political career is closed forever, since he has offended the only authority which is able to promote his success. Every sort of compensation, even that of celebrity, is refused to him. Before he published his opinions he imagined that he held them in common with many others; but no sooner has he declared them openly than he is loudly censured by his overbearing opponents, whilst those who think without having the courage to speak, like him, abandon him in silence. He yields at length, oppressed by the daily efforts he has been making, and he subsides into silence, as if he was tormented by remorse for having spoken the truth.
...Under the absolute sway of an individual despot the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul, and the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it and rose superior to the attempt; but such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved."
- Alexis De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835, pp292-3 original Henry Reeve translation, PSU, http://seas3.elte.hu/coursematerial/LojkoMiklos/Alexis-de-Tocqueville-Democracy-in-America.pdf. With exquisite irony, all or most of this material has been edited out of every print edition I’ve ever seen... :)
[1] note: "auto-da-fe" is de Tocqueville's contemporary but now-anachronistic term for being burned at the stake for the crime of heresy. The modern term, of course, is “cancel culture”, but the concept in democracies dates back at least as far as Athenian ostracism law and capital prosecutions of dangerous deviants such as Sokrates.