- I'm now very curious whether there are any voices of opinion in the media that you do respect. (Matt Taibbi? Steve Benen?) They can't ALL be useless idiots, can they? Seems like you eliminated the entire spectrum, unless you reserved a bit of fringe that I'm unfamiliar with. Or are you saying that you don't wish to read any political analysis of any kind any more? Do you think there's such a thing as objective journalism, free of bias? Would that even be preferable, if you could find it?
Yes, I've probably eliminated the entire spectrum as it is defined by mainstream media. I guess that is my point. But of course I need to explain that a little.
First off, as far as naming some people I do respect, there are actually many.
Matt Taibbi's definitely very cool in my book. His articles in Rolling Stone about Wall Street are almost always a grand slam. I wish his colleague Mike Hastings had lived a bit longer to write more about national security issues, but he may well have signed his own death warrant with his last television appearance. Things are getting very, very weird.
Another giant in my book is Glen Greenwald, who has been one of the few clear voices about Snowden, but who is not even a "journalist" according to David Gregory.
Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com is awesome in my book as well, but he doesn't write as much anymore.
Web Tarpley (whom I had the pleasure of meeting last year) is a downright monster for reporting in the Middle East. He goes right into the middle of war zones and tells it like it is. Over a year ago he exposed some of the bullshit that the Obama Administration is pulling in Syria, stuff that only came out during the Benghazi hearings that left everyone's jaws hanging. All of that was no surprise to anyone who had been paying attention to this.
But the same is true of Snowden's stuff. Anyone paying attention already knew for years pretty much everything he has leaked so far about NSA programs. The idea that he "revealed" anything is almost absurd. It's just that the mainstream media, right and left, has not been reporting on it. Tarpley even thinks Snowden is a double agent, doing a "limited hangout" as they say in the intel business, but he's in the minority on that point among the alternative press. You'd be amazed at how vigorous the debate is on various issues in the alternative media. It has it's own "spectrum" in a way. Tarpley is an "alternative lefty."
I don't agree with Tarpley about many things, I should add, but that goes without saying about anyone. I don't care about the specific disagreement part. I know I don't have the full picture, but I still feel I have a duty to do my best to piece it all together from what I can and do know.
As Milton said, truth comes from the clash of ideas. Actually I can't find that quote online right now, but the late great Cecil Neth told me that quote at CSU journalism camp in 1982, so I'm trusting him.
He also told me: write about the beer, not about the foam on top. Those are two of the best pieces of advice I've ever gotten.
A few more: I absolutely love watching Max Keiser for financial stuff on the Keiser Report. It airs on Russia Today. That's probably my favorite "mainstreamish" source for US news at this point (which is not to say I am a Vladimir Putin fan---he's a fucking KGB thug, for godsake).
Once you get outside the US controlled media, our right-left spectrum begins to seem (to me and many others) like the tiny slice of reality that it is. Foreigners tend to be able to see right through all of the postmodern wizardly of our corporate networks. Topics and ideas that we think are "fringe" here actually turn out to be quite "mainstream" in the rest of the world, where they are largely either laughing at us, or fucking disgusted at our self-denial at this point.
I compare it to how Turkey (both its government and many of its people) is still in rank denial about the Armenian holocaust, but the rest of the world knows damn well what happened and it's accepted as mainstream history. It just makes them look like fools and keeps the rest of the world from regarding them as a fully modern civilized nation.
For guerilla journalism, I very much like Luke Rudkowski's confrontational interviews of globalist phonies. He's a guy with real balls. I could never do what he does, ambushing Kissinger in the airport to ask him about war crimes, etc.
As for raw humor, I enjoy Mark Dice's video interviews of people on the street in San Diego, getting them to sign various petitions for absurd and horrifying things.
On the highbrow level, Russ Baker is a great historian/journalist of the Bush family dynasty (one of my all-time favorite topics to discuss over drinks). Wish we had more writers like him. I might have to become one at some point.
On climate-related issues, there is a whole slew of skeptical blogs I read that actually bother to discuss and weigh the evidence in a manner I find refreshing and downright scientific, instead of just name calling and screaming "it's the consensus!" But of course, I'm a denier, as you well know. So is Freeman Dyson. I can live with that kind of company, even if it is a lonely corner of the room for now.
And yes, I hate it that I have to find myself agreeing with the wretched likes of James Inhofe and other members of the Republican Party on this issue, but that's just how the chips fell. I find myself agreeing with Democrats just about as often in an "accidental" sense on various issues, and I often feel just as icky.
There are many others individuals and sources I like if I think about it. You might have to get a drink or two in me to admit to some. The real truth is I'm still a petty coward about how people think of me based on certain of my opinions. But I'm striving to be more brave about this every day. Partly it's because I like to wait until I have "all my ducks in a row" and can make an air-tight case about things, before bringing them up. I like to win. Can't emphasize that enough.
As for U.S. politicians, I can't really think of any current ones I'm into much at all. Some days I feel like I have to go all the way back to Dwight Eisenhower for that. I supported Kucinich in '08, and still mostly like him, but he's part of history now. I probably would have voted for Gary Johnson for President this last time, if I had bothered to vote, which I didn't. I'm a fan of the UK Independence Party in England (that alone makes me a racist to some people).
Bias---I don't mind that at all in reporting. I like bias. Give me the full blast of your slanted view. Make your case. I can take it. I actually wish we had more open bias, not less, in the media, but also wish that it was admitted on the surface instead of masquerading as phony objectivity, giving "both sides" of nothing.
Almost mostly everything I listen to is either purely on the Internet at this point, or comes from outside the U.S.
You might compare it to how one might feel about the musical "artists" of the big record labels, versus the indie bands putting out their own MPGs cut on their laptops. I think we're reaching that kind of tipping point when it comes to journalism and politics, where the old order is giving way to a new one. The right-left divide seems to me at this point like a debate between who's a greater musician: Jay Z or Justin Bieber. I'll abstain, thank you very much.
But I don't have any idea what's coming next or afterwards, really. Actually I do have ideas of what the future will be, but they are almost certainly wrong by a mile. One thing I've learned: I'm often pretty good at sorting out the past, detective style, but really shitty about predicting the future. I'm along for the ride in that regard, trying to keep on course moment by moment with whatever moral compass I have regarding how other people should be treated and respected, and what I define as freedom.
I'm not ashamed to say that I have changed my mind many times about many things, and will no doubt do so many times in the future. I'm actually very convincible with the right evidence. Somehow that's seen as a sign of weakness these days. But I'd rather be right than consistent any day of the week.
Again, much thanks for question. Hope I made some sense at all. I enjoyed the challenge.
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