The All-Powerful Leviathan {also good insights about Ukraine}

Taki's ^ | February 21, 2022 | "The Z Man"

[Salman]

here is a theory kicking around dissident politics that says journalism is best seen as an activity, rather than a profession. It is a form of activism that uses information, real and manufactured, to promote various agendas and ideologies. Contrary to what the media companies used to say, they are not neutral observers speaking truth to power, but power centers promoting agendas that serve their interests.

One key point in this argument is that journalists themselves no longer bother pretending they are neutral. The Washington Post still has that silly line “Democracy Dies in Darkness” on its masthead, but it now reads more like a mission statement, rather than a warning. Proof that the universe has a sense of humor is that the most aggressive opponents of free speech are the mass media companies.

...

A good example is this item in the war propaganda about Ukraine. The three “journalists” were given a story by the State Department that claims Putin is organizing death squads for after the invasion. He plans to unleash these death squads on the LGBTQI+ community in Ukraine. They also plan to fan out around the world to assassinate Ukrainian and Belarusian political opponents.

The whole thing is laughable nonsense, but the people authoring the story are unqualified to question any of it, even if they possessed the self-awareness to wonder why they were handed this scoop by government agents. Of course, that is why they were selected for the leak. That node on the network instinctively looks for the most gullible and compliant nodes on the media side for these selected leaks.

...

[marktwain]

Interesting take. It is an analogy to compare a system to an organizm, but there are strong similarities.

The flow of information in a bee hive or ant colony is a pretty good description of what we see in the political structure.

Control of the flow of information is the key.

If that can be disrupted, with truth from outside the structure, the whole system of the left can fail, because it will not be able to act in a coordinated manner.

We are seeing signs of this now. The New York Times is putting out mixed messages on the canadian trucker protests.

[hinckley buzzard]

He is correct that “journalism” is not a profession, it never was. Journalists are writers for money. They may have an agenda, mostly do these days, but that makes them little better than hired hands and rent seekers.

They have no specialized fund of knowledge or information; no standards or requirement for licensure; they adhere to no code of ethics; they have no definable clientele and accept no fiduciary responsibility for their actions. Conflicts of interest are endemic and virtually wired in. Anyone who speaks of the “profession” of journalism knows not of which he speaks.