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Louis: 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.
It's one reason why I found the ideas of the speakers
at our recent Summit so refreshing. They see things from a
perspective that's sorely lacking in politics and mainstream American reporting.
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, emails, and events, 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.
No doubt
about it: journalism can have an enormous impact on the political process.
And in today's highly politicized economy, shrewd investors know to look for
"the story behind the story" in order to stay on top of trends.
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