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(Interviewed
by Louis James, Editor, International
Speculator)
L:
Hola Doug. What's on your mind this week?
Doug:
The color yellow. As in "yellow journalism" – which seems
almost the only kind we have these days. Of course, to be fair, inflammatory,
shamelessly dishonest "man bites dog" journalism has always been
the dominant kind, simply because it sells papers. But we'll see more than
the usual amount in the next couple of months, simply because elections lend
themselves to it; politics seems to stimulate the reptilian part of the
brain, the most primitive part. Both politics and the reptilian brain relate
well to the yellow press.
Anyway,
like many people, I watched snippets of the Republican National Convention in
Tampa. Maybe, since I'm engaging in punditry, I should have watched the whole
damn thing. But I simply couldn't force myself to watch even all the parts
that were broadcast, because it was just too boring and degrading. I can't
imagine how the people who were there for the whole four days were able to
remain awake for the whole thing. Perhaps this is proof that zombies really
do exist. What kind of people could take such a charade seriously? It was all
canned speeches and scripted events that were basically dishonest. Politics
has always been dishonest, of course, but at least it used to be unscripted
and mildly entertaining…
L:
Wait a minute – what about the now much-discussed Eastwood incident? By
all accounts, that was unscripted and perhaps even unwelcome among the
convention organizers.
Doug:
I did watch Clint and enjoyed his speech, which appeared to be unscripted.
He's a skilled actor and entertainer, so I've got to believe it was really
off the cuff. I've read in the papers – which means I don't really know
anything except some reporter's guess – but I've read that Clint was
only supposed to give a five-minute, canned speech. Romney and the convention
organizers were caught off guard when Eastwood asked for a chair to be
brought on stage; it was thought he wanted to use it to sit down. But he then
proceeded to have a very funny conversation with an
invisible Obama. One reason I liked it is that he treated Obama with the
respect he deserved. It's about time people stopped treating presidents as if
they were Roman emperors.
L:
I've watched that segment on YouTube and noticed that he used the word
"libertarian," which I doubt the RNC would have approved in
advance. So I can believe that "Dirty Harry" was shooting from the
hip, as it were.
Doug:
I agree – I'm sure they would not have approved of that. I expect the
Republicans will do everything they can to discount, denigrate, and destroy
the Libertarian Party candidacy of Gary Johnson for president. They know
Johnson is likely to draw more votes from them than from the Democrats. And
of course, Ron Paul was made a veritable nonperson. The only mention he got
at the convention didn't include any acknowledgment of some of his most
important propositions, like ending the drug war, ending foreign
interventions and wars, and abolishing the Fed. These people are dishonest
and manipulative through and through.
The
other thing Clint did, as I recall, was only to mention Romney twice, and not
in way that was a particularly strong endorsement. It took courage on Clint's
part in that forum.
L:
I noticed that too; his focus was on the people, not the candidate. The
biggest cheer he got was when he spoke of the people and said, "We own
this country… politicians are employees of ours."
Doug:
Yes. I'm sure that also rankled the suits running the show. But the fact that
Clint's sincere, unscripted comments are so exceptional tells us a lot about
the rest of the drivel at such events. It's like he came up with the idea
shortly before he went on stage and was truly speaking extemporaneously. It
wasn't approved by the Politburo, like absolutely everything else emanating
from the convention was.
The
press coverage of the incident is a good example of the sort of thing that
makes me despise reporters. In a way, it's a litmus test of the psychology of
the average journalist, how they reacted to that thing… It says more
about them than it does about Eastwood, how they reported on it and what they
said about it. So many of them focused on how he hesitated, fumbled, repeated
himself, and so forth, scoffing at his remarks as being just an old man's
rant. The snide
comments of Michael Moore, the Evil Party's answer to Jabba the Hutt, are
fairly typical.
It
was clear to me that Clint spoke from the heart, mistakes and all. I believe
that 300 million Americans out there are starving for straight talk from the
heart of someone they like – and everyone loves Clint. My guess is that
most everybody who isn't an ideologue of either the Stupid Party or the Evil
Party really resonated with his sentiments. The only downside is they'll wind
up helping the feckless Romney.
It
was night-and-day different from the slick speeches by the horrible
politicians. They all sounded like they'd rehearsed their speeches dozens of
times. Every one of them sounded phony – which they are. I preferred
the old days when you never knew what the outcome of the convention would be,
and the speeches could actually tell you something about the men giving them
– or at least have entertainment value. When did all this change? My
guess is in the '50s, with broadcast TV and the invention of the
teleprompter. The whole convention was a flavorless, odorless, sanitized bore
– except for Clint.
L:
I was struck by those criticisms of Eastwood's delivery as well. Clint
Eastwood was born in 1930 – give the guy a break! These critics will be
lucky to be half as eloquent when they are in their 80s. But even that's
beside the point; what should matter most is what he said, not how he said
it. These same media hacks would never speak so disrespectfully of a
venerable statesman they agreed with.
Doug:
I have nothing but contempt for these blow-dried airheads on TV news shows.
They pontificate and tell you what you're supposed to think – but
they're really not journalists. They just read the establishment press
releases, thereby helping to prop it up. Instead of being the Fourth Estate
– a private-sector watchdog and counterbalance to state power –
they just make themselves lapdogs of politicians.
If
you watch something like The Daily
Show, Jon Stewart will often show clips of different so-called
journalists in juxtaposition to each other – he did this regarding the
Republican Convention – and you can see that the reporters all use the
same words. It's like they are all reading the same script or keying off each
other – it's a herd mentality. This is one reason print journalism has
gone downhill, as well. In the era before the TV, a journalist had to witness
things in person and draw an independent conclusion. It wasn't technically
feasible to know what everybody else was groupthinking in real time. The
noble, lone journalist in the mold of H. L. Mencken is completely gone from
the scene today.
L:
I know what you mean, but a TV news anchor isn't really a reporter. He or she
is an attractive actor hired to read the news others research, because their
faces increase ratings. Is it fair to criticize such people for not being
investigative journalists?
Doug:
No, I guess it's not. They are hired to look sincere and look good. I believe
it's well established that people in general are prone to like and believe
people they find attractive – that's the basis for hiring TV news
anchors – that and having completely unremarkable, predictable,
"mainstream" views. But it's still not a good thing. To have a
system that relies on attractive but ignorant or misinformed people
regurgitating reporting written by others is dangerous. The so-called Fourth
Estate is dying.
You
know, that very term – Fourth Estate – is being used more now, at
the very time that the institution itself is changing its essence. The idea
of a Fourth Estate arose with the Industrial Revolution and the inception of
capitalism – the first three basically being the church, the
"nobles," and everyone else – the 99%. The Fourth Estate has
historically been a bit outside all that, but certainly outside the church
and the state. Their purpose was to tell it like it is, keep things in
balance, and be impartial truth-tellers. Major cities each had dozens of
papers. But now the Fourth Estate has truly been captured by the ruling
classes.
That's
the bad news. The good news is that we have the Internet. The stuff people
report there may not always be anymore accurate than the mass media, but at
least it's independent – it's not a mouthpiece for the Establishment.
As far as I'm concerned, the Fourth Estate has betrayed its basic raison
d’être, and no longer serves much of a useful purpose.
L:
Which brings us back to the people who write the stories or compose the video
coverage – the kind of investigators who are supposed to make a show
like 60 Minutes deliver hidden truth to a population that needs to
know…
Doug:
Unfortunately, they seem to be cut from pretty much the same cloth as the
reporters who write for outfits like the New York Times or, God
forbid, USA Today – something I feel sheepish about reading in
public. They all went to the same universities, where they were taught the
same ideas and values by the same teachers – who are all statists of
one stripe or another. They are all so deeply inculcated in this worldview,
they don't even know they are in it…
L:
Which is why journalists who don't work for right-wing rags never admit that
there is such a thing as "liberal media bias." Their colored
glasses have been on for so long, they don't even realize they wear them.
Doug:
Exactly. The 60 Minutes guys fell flat on their faces when they didn't
call Ben Bernanke out for
contradicting himself on their show, first saying the Fed was printing
money, then saying it wasn't. If these guys are the toughest watchdogs we
have, we're in big trouble. The best sources of news on TV are probably The
Daily Show and The Colbert Report. As comedians, they serve the
role of the court jester and can say things to the king that nobody else
dares to. It's a sad testimony.
L:
But there are exceptions, like John
Stossel.
Doug:
Of course, but again, it's the exception that tests the rule; the fact that
Stossel is so extraordinary tells us a lot about what is ordinary. You can
see this clearly when you get a bunch of reporters together on an impromptu
talk show, like Meet the Press or whatever; what you see is a bunch of
opinionated people, some somewhat to the left, some somewhat to the right of
center, yelling at each other. It's never an intelligent discussion of ideas
and principles at all. For instance, there's never a discussion of whether
Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid are correct areas for government
involvement – that's completely accepted and a given. Even with
Obamacare or Romneycare the discussion is only one of whether it's affordable
or efficient, not whether it's ethically defensible. It's just glib
one-liners and catch phrases.
L:
Whoever has the best sound bite wins.
Doug:
Just so. Political talk shows are frustrating and embarrassing to watch. I
just want to wash my hands of the whole mess, but I guess I'll have to watch
at least a little of the Democrat's Convention, just to see what kind of
charade they put on. I expect it will be more enthusiastic than that of the
Republicans, because at least the Democrats actually have some principles...
even if they're completely bent, destructive, and statist principles. It
should be some show, maybe like the Nuremburg rally.
L:
Morbid curiosity?
Doug:
Yes, and very unappealing. It's literally like watching something die. The
capacity of the masses to sit on their sofas and watch endless hours of canned
drivel on TV is increasingly convincing me that libertarians and other
free-thinkers are actually genetic mutants. We can mate with Boobus
americanus intellectually about as well as a human can mate physically
with a chimpanzee.
L:
Mutants… or at least an uncommon personality type.
Doug:
Either way, we are so few – it's hard to have any hope of reason ever
winning the day. My friend Jeff Berwick was caught in a spate of optimism the
other day, which started with him guessing that maybe 10,000 new people become
libertarians every day – a great-sounding number. Then he took out his
calculator and realized that even if the population of earth was stable that,
even at that rate, it would take something like 2,000 years before everyone
stopped thinking like a criminal.
Communication
is critical, of course. But while that's become easier, in some ways, like
the Internet, it may be increasingly difficult in others. The masses are
addled by the mind-numbing rays from their TVs, and there are scores of
millions more addled by psychiatric drugs, and hundreds of millions more by
generations of government miseducation.
On
the bright side – you know I like to always look on the bright side
– the Internet could be bigger than all those things. The big media
corporations no longer have a stranglehold on the news. These days, anyone
with a phone has audio- and video-recording capability and can be a reporter.
With the Internet, any of these people can get word of what they see out to
the entire world.
L:
A new, 21st century version of the Fourth Estate?
Doug:
Yes; the truth is out there. But as with everything else, it's subject to Pareto's
Law. So, 80% of what's out there is crap, and 80% of what's left is
merely okay. But that remaining 4% of quality, uncensored, free information
flow is extremely valuable. More good news: because people increasingly
realize that 80% of everything is crap, they're becoming evermore
discriminating – which is a very good thing. People used to slavishly
believe everything in the newspapers just because it was written; now they're
necessarily more skeptical, which means they're forced to be more thoughtful.
But
as great as this is, it's like Jesus of Nazareth said: "He who has ears,
let him hear." For the distributed and free reporting we now have via
the Internet to do much good, people need to question what they're told and
look for the truth – that's not going to happen if they only use the
'Net for social media and porn. After generations of government schooling,
where critical thinking is the last thing they want to teach, people willing
to do this are few and far between.
L:
You're an atheist quoting the Bible?
Doug:
Why not? I can read. Everyone should read the Bible, along with
Richard Dawkins, of course.
L:
Indeed. Investment implications?
Doug:
Nothing I haven't said before, but that doesn't make it any less true. The
terminal corruption of the major news corporations and the lack of interest
in seeking the truth among the general population augurs very poorly for the
prospects of the US and the current world order. This creates speculative
opportunities, which we work hard on uncovering in our publications, but
prospects for mainstream investments are not good. Western civilization is
truly in decline and far down the slippery slope.
L:
You wrote an article some years ago on how to profit from the coming collapse
of Western civilization…
Doug:
Yes – which brings me back to the color yellow, but in a positive
context this time: the yellow metal. Now the collapse is beginning, my advice
is the same: accumulate
gold – not as an investment, but for safety. For profit, speculate
on the various bubbles and other trends government interventions in response
to the unfolding crisis bring about. Rational investment is not an option in
this context (remembering that investment is deploying capital to create more
capital). Hopefully, investment will again be a viable option after the
ongoing crisis bottoms; it depends in good degree how most people view the
role of government. We all have to be speculators now, if we want to make
money, and we have to be "gold bugs" if we want to come through the
storm with minimal loss of wealth.
L:
And for more on that, readers could hardly do better than to come to our
conference on "Navigating
the Politicized Economy" this week in southern California.
Doug:
Or – while we're plugging our own products – they could read your
newsletter for our best speculative guidance.
L:
Okay, but enough with the crass commercial messages. More soon from
California!
Doug:
Looking forward to it.
The American economy has never been as centralized as it
is today... and Doug's warning that this centralization has made mainstream
investing a poor bet has never been more true.
That's why we've teamed up with Sprott, Inc. to host Navigating
the Politicized Economy, a critical investors' summit in Carlsbad,
California held September 7-9. It will feature 28 financial luminaries
– including Doug Casey, Rick Rule, and Eric Sprott – who will
reveal how they plan to leverage today's centralized economy to create new
wealth.
If you're not attending, you can still profit from every
recorded presentation and every piece of actionable investment advice
attendees will hear with the Summit Audio Collection. Order
before the Summit ends on September 9 and you will save $100.
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