Podcast #138
John Steppling, Dennis Riches, Shaenah Batterson, John Bower, Hiroyuki Hamada, and Lex Steppling
https://propagandainfocus.com/the-end-of-pluralism-and-the-decline-of-soft-power/
https://john-steppling.com/2024/11/the-tortured-present/
https://x.com/battleforeurope/status/1861414128180457734
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-ship
The pro-Zionist mantra indeed continues unabated. Only today I stumbled on a YouTube “discussion” labelled “What Sam Harris Realized About Palestinians That NO ONE Else Did”. I already knew about Harris’s total prostration before the Israel lobby and I knew I should have resisted ... but I surrendered just to see what Harris’s “revelation” was – and it turns out that what he “realised that NO One Else Did!” was pure Zionist boilerplate about how the Palestinians had a “culture of death” compared to Israel’s “culture of life” etc. And (take a deep breath!) if only these Hamas monsters “could have seen the beautiful souls they were destroying” on Oct 7 etc.
So thinking that this excrement might be “excused” by coming from a year ago, I find that this was posted on Nov 12 i.e. only two weeks ago!
And, speaking of “beautiful souls”,:
https://x.com/FFS_WhatNow/status/1861439624851107873
Here we have a “disconnect” between these “fabulous media creatures” and the world around them that hasn’t been so glaring since those “roaring twenties” and that “gilded cage”.
Dennis’s implication that there is some kind of “Mafia” type organisation at work here (e.g. that it might be Bibi’s turn to be “retired”) occurred to me from the start. As you (John) suggested, Russell Brand’s new Hallelujah tambourine mode may well be a “survival mechanism” for him – and an opportunity to “tune out” (with possibly some “interesting” photos of him currently residing with Mossad?)
It’s a pity I couldn’t join the debate because I really wanted to congratulate Dennis on that marvellous essay on “soft power”. The “legendary” David Bowie concert which “brought down the wall” (?!) happened in 1987. Back at that point I lived on my own for the first time ever and found myself watching less and less TV. I felt as if I was coming out of a lifelong hypnosis. And although the Berlin Wall didn’t come down for another two years, the meme was “in the wind”. And I recall this utterly phony and desperate euphoria at the time. Communism had “been conquered” and was now “consigned to the dustbin” etc.
I interpreted all this, even then, as being like the “rising stage” in a bipolar disorder. It was bound to crash as realisation that the disappearance of the Soviets would not lead to paradise after all. (A Van Morrison line comes to mind: “You got everything in the world you ever wanted/And right about now your face should wear a smile”)
There is a sad tale to relate here which may be relevant. There was a music critic by the name of Ian MacDonald, probably most famous for writing “Revolution in the Head” which was a book about the Beatles. But MacDonald also had a fixation on the Russian composer Shostakovich and had a monomaniacal angle through which he interpreted every Shostakovich piece as a coded attack on the Soviet system. Presumably MacDonald was one who felt ecstatic when the wall fell. In any case, he committed suicide in 2003 and although it would be impossible to assess the reasons for this I can’t help wondering if the political situation had a part to play i.e. that there may have been a suspicion developing in MacDonald’s mind that the Soviets were, after all, not the real problem.
Talk about how all those “rebel stars” turned into reactionary dupes is one of my favourite rants. The “Neil Young Wanker List” is vast. Of course, there are The Eagles and the whole of that “West Coast” scene. Joni Mitchell could be excruciating too. I note that Mr Dylan was always canny enough to be non-committal for most of the time (though check out the lyrics to his Zionist masturbation anthem “Neighbourhood Bully”!) The aforementioned Van was one of the few that totally rejected the vaccine push and it was interesting to see how the media furiously smeared him for it.
Here is a link to the panel discussion I mentioned: ABC News, November 20, 1983. Compared with anything you would see today on a major network, it was a fairly sophisticated discussion of the prospects for nuclear disarmament. https://vimeo.com/1034054172