What, you didn't get a grant from the MIT Media Lab? Really? Shocked.

What is "mercenary economist" and "mercenary intellectual"? I found the first quarter of this episode hard to follow but it seemed to become a little easier to understand from the midpoint to the end.

I listened to the first half again, and I'm assuming in this case "mercenary" means "We'll say whatever 'facts' you want for the right price" and not killers for hire.

There is no Nobel "Peace Prize in Economics", Ronny, you senile dipshit. Glad you're dead.

"In These Times" is a great labor magazine. Read that with "Monthly Review" and "Dollars and Sense."

The choice to be a Russian serf (with the tiny decision body of the Mir, whose power was extremely limited) OR be an African slave in Brazil, where there was no possibility of real decisions you could make. Truly Libertarianism is an Engine of Freedom™.

The "philosophy" of Autarchism or Libertarianism always was hollow - find Mark Ames' "Meet Charles Koch's Brain" on the Internet Archive; Chuck's guru was Robert LeFevre (1911-86), a Depression Era scam artist, '30s radio station scab, member of the I AM cult, FBI informant, and founder of the Colorado "Freedom School" seminar that became the short-lived Rampart College (1965-70) that devolved into the Rampart Institute. LeFevre ("Luh-Fave") was a major pusher for homeschooling, defunding unions, making everything private. Weirdly he was the guy who got the Libertarian "movement" into Holocaust denial as a way to slam/smear FDR and US involvement in the War, because many of the guys LeFevre worked for in the 1930s-40s were far-Right, as was Fred Koch, Charlie's father.

Larry Charles (Seinfeld, Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm) stops by the trap to discuss his new docuseries,  "Dangerous World of Comedy".

Chapo Trap House

292 - Hats Off to Larry feat. Larry Charles (2/25/19)

Eli Valley stops by to talk Ilhan Omar, Meghan McCain, Chelsea Clinton, and the latest act of fascist mass murder in Christchurch, NZ.

Also Virgil solves the Israel-Palestine conflict.

https://givealittle.co.nz/cause/christchurch-shooting-victims-fund

298 - The Israel Nerd feat. Eli Valley (3/18/19)

Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes!

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311 Teaser - Toon Bullets

“Science and religion fight over Hawaii's highest point,” one CNN headline puts it, “Desecrating sacred land or finding new frontiers?” BBC asks.”Science, Interrupted: Mauna Kea Observatories ‘caught in the middle,’” Pacific Business News writes. 

When tensions arise between native communities and the so-called “pursuit of science”, more often than not Western media presents these points of conflict as a symmetrical and simplistic case of “science vs. superstition.” Science is framed as a morally and politically neutral quest for truth––an objective and innovative good that will unequivocally benefit humanity. 

But Western “science”––despite its rank-and-file advocates' often best intentions–– has historically been used as the public relations vanguard of colonialism and white supremacy. A Trojan Horse presented as ideologically neutral, followed by an outpouring of exploitation, industry and the erasure of native peoples––both culturally and physically. 

While everyone can agree scientific research and progress are good things, the institution of “science” as such––from North America to Australia to Africa to Palestine-–has a long history of serving on the front lines of white, capitalist expansionism. This week we are going to discuss this history, how anti-colonial scientists are pushing back against these forces, and how we can expand human knowledge and understanding without weaponizing the enterprise to serve the interest of power.

We're joined on this episode by Nick Estes, Assistant Professor in the American Studies Department at the University of New Mexico.

                              

Ep. 90: How Western Media's False Binary Between "Science" & Indigenous Rights Erases Native People

Since the early 2000s, a spate of forensics-focused TV shows and films have emerged on the pop culture scene. Years after Law & Order premiered in the '90s, shows like CSI, NCIS, and The Mentalist followed, trumpeting the scientific merit of analyzing blood-spatter patterns, reading facial and bodily cues, and using the latest fingerprint-matching technology to catch the bad guy.

Yet what these procedurals neglect to acknowledge is that many of these popular forensic techniques are deeply unscientific and entirely political. Spatter pattern-matching, firearms analysis, hair analysis, fingerprint and bite mark analysis — they’re all mostly bullshit with little scientific merit. Despite this, forensics have helped contribute to the wrongful convictions of thousands of people: a storytelling aid, prosecutorial smoke and mirrors, a courtroom PR tool to lend scientific verisimilitude to what is very often just circumstantial, hunch-based police work.

On this episode, we break down how popular culture depictions of forensics helps mislead viewers — and by extension jurors — into thinking forensics are science that proves guilt rather than what they really are: slick marketing collateral to help prosecutors convict someone they already think is guilty for other, nonscientific reasons. 

We are joined by Aviva Shen, Senior Editor at Slate.

Episode 94: The Goofy Pseudoscience Copaganda of TV Forensics

“'Right-to-work' means freedom and choice,” a Boston Globe op-ed explains. “As housing costs rise, some people are choosing to live on the road instead,” a Fox Business headline states. “If your insurance company isn’t doing right by you, you should have another, better choice,” reads Joe Biden’s campaign platform. 
We’re told repeatedly that “freedom of choice” is essential to a robust economy and human happiness. Economists, executives, politicians, and pundits insist that, the same way consumers shop for TVs, workers can choose their healthcare plan, parents can choose their kids' school, and gig-economy workers can choose their own schedules and benefits. 

While this language is superficially appealing, it’s also profoundly deceitful. The notion of “choice” as a gateway to freedom and a sign of societal success isn’t a neutral call for people to exercise some abstract civic power; it’s free-market capitalist ideology manufactured by libertarian and neoliberal think tanks and their mercenary economists and media messaging nodes. Its purpose: to convince people that they have a choice while obscuring the economic factors that ensure they really don’t: People can’t “choose” to keep their employer-provided insurance if they’re fired from their jobs or “choose” to enroll their kids in private school if they can’t afford the tuition. 

In this episode, we examine the rise of “choice” rhetoric, how it cravenly appeals to our vanity, and how US media has uncritically adopted the framing--helping the right erode social services while atomizing us all into independent, self-interested collections of “choices.” 

We are joined by Jessica Stites, executive editor of In These Times.

Episode 95: The Hollow Vanity of Libertarian "Choice" Rhetoric

One of the most prized professional norms for journalists, particularly the United States, is the preservation of neutrality in reporting. While the concept of “objectivity” has fallen out of fashion among mainstream reportage in recent years, related concepts that convey a similar idea such as “impartiality” and “neutrality” have come to replace it. In their mission statements and codes of ethics, corporate and government owned outlets routinely proclaim the importance of impartiality and balance, in the sanctified pursuit of fair, unbiased reporting. 

In theory, this can be a healthy idea. Distinguishing between so-called opinion or editorial versus neutral, down-the-middle reporting –“objectivity” or “impartiality” can give the reader a sense that a series of facts are being reported rather than some guy’s opinion. 
The fundamental problem is when this vaguely aspirational genre morphs into an unchecked ideology––an ideology that requires one to think we live in a world where said facts are curated and created outside of long-existing power structures; that those who produce, on an institutional scale, knowledge products via think tanks and academic institutions are without bias. That journalistic institutions, funded by large corporations and billionaires themselves, don’t decide which neutral facts are important and which aren’t. 

“Objectivity” that doesn’t calibrate power asymmetries or attempt to account for its own institutional ideology isn’t a mode of reporting, it’s conservative conditioning that––if not in intent, in effect––does little more than advance prevailing ruling class ideology. Indeed, anyone who’s ever studied marketing or PR or propaganda will tell you the most effective messaging is that which appears unbiased and impartial.

On today’s show, we’ll examine how objectivity came to be a defining principle of Western journalism and how U.S. media’s understanding of impartiality provides an urbane veneer for racism, homophobia, anti-poor policies and other reactionary currents.

We are joined this week by journalist Lewis Raven Wallace, author of The View from Somewhere: Undoing the Myth of Journalistic Objectivity.

Episode 102: The Conservative Sanctimony of Journalistic Impartiality

In this News Brief we recap the recent mainstream pushback against pro-police pop culture, and discuss how this pushback is raising fundamental questions about the supposed firewall between creators and the political content they produce.

News Brief: The Growing Pushback to Copaganda

Look man this episode gets pretty dark. Idk. Here's everything I could find about that Milwuakee house:

https://heavy.com/news/2020/06/watch-milwaukee-crowd-burns-down-suspected-sex-trafficking-house/

https://twitter.com/jonbernhardt/status/1275975081156587520

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/local/2020/06/23/milwaukee-missing-girls-crowd-grows-rumored-sex-trafficking-house-shooting-fire-starts/3246406001/

https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2020/06/23/suspected-sex-trafficking-house-burned/

https://twitter.com/Eugene_V_Dabbs/status/1275549018278379521

https://twitter.com/abcdentminded/status/1275664887725858817

https://fox6now.com/2020/06/23/milwaukee-police-investigate-missing-persons-reports-for-2-girls-ages-15-and-13/

ANYWAYS

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The People Under The Damn Stairs

We're unlocking our April 19, 2019 Patreon episode with the late, great Michael Brooks in which we discussed the "Intellectual Dark Web" and one of its stupidest practitioners, Dave Rubin.

Check out "Against the Web: A Cosmopolitan Answer to the New Right" by Michael Brooks - https://www.johnhuntpublishing.com/zer0-books/our-books/against-web

Michael and Us

UNLOCKED - #98 - The Intellectual Dork Web (w/ Michael Brooks)

We are joined by the creators of Preserving Worlds, a documentary series on Means TV that explores the process of archiving dying online game spaces like Second Life, Worlds Chat, and the Doom mod community.

PRESERVING WORLDS:
https://means.tv/programs/preservingworlds
https://means.tv/

DANIEL BESSNER'S FPS PIECE
https://www.thedriftmag.com/the-cultural-contradictions-of-call-of-duty/

BRIDGE MUSIC
Boss Theme by Sawsquarenoise on dojokratos
https://freemusicarchive.org/genre/Chiptune

KATE WILLETT'S BOOK
https://www.audible.com/pd/Dirtbag-Anthropology-Audiobook/B08W5FSQ1V?qid=1613952937&sr=1-1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=Z5VFRYRGPMG16EZH249G

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Librarypunk 2021 w/ Preserving Worlds

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Episode 95: The Hollow Vanity of Libertarian "Choice" Rhetoric

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