Have We All Gone Mad? by Ray Zwarich
Matt Taibbi has generously released a ‘free’ article, rather than holding it sequestered behind his self-limiting Substack paywall, as he does most of his work, (which I, for one, seldom read ’cause I’m too much a cheapskate skinflint to pay a rich man $5/month so he can tell me what he thinks). This article, entitled ‘House Democrats Have Lost Their Minds?‘, was published this morning by ScheerPost.
Funny thing is, House Democrats think Matt Taibbi has lost HIS mind. They think House Republicans have lost theirs as well. In fact, seems like every inmate of the asylum these days is calling other inmates “crazy”.
Hmm… Could we ALL maybe be right?
Well… Anyway… As I explain in my comments below, which I attached to Mr. Taibbi’s article, his own behavior certainly strikes me as exceedingly odd in some ways.
Can ANY of us living under the giant propaganda bubble that defines our obviously ‘sick’ culture really claim to be completely “sane”? I, for one, certainly do not. And it sure seems to me that the ones who make that claim are the very ones who least deserve to. Or, Well… (pun intended)… Maybe it’s just me.
Hope all are well and strong.
Simius C
PS: My work is always ‘free’. No paywall. I know what it’s worth.
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My comments attached to Mr. Taibbi’s article:
The self-adoring Matt Taibbi is, of course, among a very small handful of our VERY best journalists and commentators. I only chide him for his obvious human foibles, (he just can’t hide the degree to which he adores himself, with that self-satisfied smart-aleck smirk frozen on his face), because I can see how those foibles are interfering with his capacity to fulfill his own sincere aspirations.
He clearly wants to be a ‘great journalist’, and he ALMOST is. But he just can’t quite get his own self-adoring ego out of his own way. He thus lacks self awareness. And, lacking self-awareness, (due to being prisoner of his own self-adoring ego), he just can’t quite get fully ‘up to speed’ in his perceptions of what is happening around him.
He’s a VERY good journalist, but he couldn’t yet carry ole Georgie Boy Orwell’s jock strap. I think he has the potential to be Orwell’s equal. He has the potential to be a writer and commentator that generations hence will revere and be thankful for his work.
THAT is why I chide him.
I want to help Mr. Taibbi achieve his own aspirations. Thus, rather than shower him with yet more adulation, as all his adoring ‘fans’ do, I chide him for his very obvious foibles that are (very obviously) holding him back.
He’s told us that he is a Kurosawa fan. Does he remember how the great chieftain Shingen in Kagemusha always kept his closest friend at his side, because he was wise enough to know that only his truest friend would refuse to be an adoring sycophant? Only his truest friend could be trusted to tell him the truth. “You stupid mountain monkey” was the way his friend most often addressed this great chieftain and leader.
That was a HUGE lesson to me. Since I saw the film several decades ago, in an art-house theater in Kansas City, in 1981 or so, I often address myself that way. “You stupid mountain monkey”. More than I am anything else, I am indeed a “stupid mountain monkey”, (no more than a ‘cognitive ape’).
Having learned such a crucial lesson, and though I’ve never even met him, Mr. Taibbi can thus count on me to NOT be an adoring sycophant. I see that he, as well, is no more and no better than a “stupid mountain monkey”, just like me.
I’m not doing this, (chiding him for his foibles to help him get those foibles out of his own way so he can achieve his own aspirations for ‘greatness’), for him. All human motives are selfish. I’m doing it for me. I’m doing it to further my own aspirations to advance the interests of the Common People by defeating the deadly murderous Elite Forces that rule over our nation with an Iron Fist, and are now threatening all Humanity with apocalyptic war in pursuit of their demented designs to rule over all nations on Earth.
Mr. Taibbi is truly among our best, but I see more in him. I know he can be better. To further my own aspirations I NEED him to be better. He wants to be a ‘great journalist’? Well… He’s a VERY good one already, but he’s not quite yet the ‘great one’ that I ‘see’ that he can be.
He and Glenn Greenwald, (another of our VERY best), are very similar in many ways. It is very frustrating for me to see how they constantly try to prove to themselves what they ALREADY know. Mr. Greenwald has actually taken some important steps forward lately, (his consciousness seems to be expanding), but still, both of these VERY good journalists refuse to draw the very conclusions toward which all their avid arguments and advocacy lead us.
Thus they feel compelled to keep proving the SAME dang things over and over, and yet over again, rather than accept the already-proven as ‘given’, and thus then advancing to explore the next level of consciousness into which their proven ‘givens’ delivers them and us.
They thus fail to fully exploit the process of Reason, Humanity’s greatest gift, to advance our understanding of our experience. From evidence we can discern ‘postulates’. From postulates we can prove ‘theorems’. When we prove a theorem, we can then use it to begin proving another, more advanced theorem. We don’t just keep proving the same theorem over and over. Proving one has less value unless we use it to prove another that advances our understanding. (It’s been a long time since 10th grade geometry class, but it goes something like that).
What could be a better example than the plaintive question Mr, Taibbi asks us here? “Have they all gone mad”?
Uhhh…. If there ever was a “no shite Sherlock” moment, that is surely it. Yea, Matty Boy, they’ve long ago gone completely bonkers “mad”. This has been VERY obvious for quite some time now. Asking this question is thus a bit like asking if the wild bear defecates in the forest. You’ve ALREADY, long, long ago, boyo, PROVEN that these people have “gone mad”. Why do you ask this question again now? Asking it again can only detract from your having proven it previously.
Going back even to the “vampire squid” days, when these people were shamelessly doing their undisguised reverse Robin Hood act, (robbing the poor to pay the rich), all the while wrapping themselves in the all-cleansing cloak of self-righteousness, who among us in our right minds did not realize that yes, indeed, “they have all gone mad”?
Well… Matty Boy, Vampire Squid was (what?) 14 years ago? And here you are still trying to prove to yourself what you proved to us all perfectly well that long ago?
Yes, Mr. Taibbi, all this is REALLY true. We are REALLY living in a nation that has long ago fallen into a state of mass psychosis. It’s not just the Democrats. It’s not just our Congress. It’s not even just our government. Our entire nation has “gone mad”.
We are living in the midst of a murderously deadly Empire that is built upon a foundation of Big Lies. This “Empire of Lies” has intentionally rendered our population into a state of clinical mass psychotic delusion. The Elites who run this murderous Evil Empire shamelessly kill millions upon millions of people, for no other reason than to serve their own insatiable greed and lust for ever more wealth and power. These evil, morally demented Elites have been doing this for many decades now, (arguably for centuries), and yet most of our clinically ‘delusionally insane’ population whole-heartedly believe that this deadly murderous US Empire is a force acting for ‘good’ in the world, a force acting for ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’.
Our nation, as a polity, has ‘certifiably’, clinically speaking, gone completely and utterly “mad”. We are living in the midst of clinical mass delusional insanity.
We’ve seen this before. It’s not really all that uncommon for entire nations to embrace mass psychosis. Is this not what we saw arise in Europe in the mid 20th Century?
C’mon, Mr. Taibbi. Coffee’s hot. Smells good. How ’bout you ‘wake up’ and breath in its aroma? You’ve done yeoman service to our nation in helping us prove this ‘theorem’. How ’bout we accept it as a ‘given’? Our poor, tragic, bleeding nation has indeed gone batshit bonkers.
How ’bout we expand our consciousness? How ’bout we go on and start proving the theorems toward which that proven theorem leads us?