Join Victor Davis Hanson this weekend before the election with Sami Winc and examine the accusations of misinformation, disinformation, and “fake news” in past and present politics. How do voters make sense of it?
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A very small percentage of our population choose to be informed about information contained in these podcasts.
The public reacts to external stimulii e.g. high fuel prices, food prices and consumables. Fortunately.
Will any over reaction by a Republican Congress investigating the past two years of wrongdoing dilute the impact of such investigating? Can we be assured the investigating will be laser focused on the most egregious acts of the Democrats? There is probably enough wrongdoing that even a thorough inquiry by Congress would easily consume two years, without likely roadblocks by the democrats.
Most importantly, how will anyone be held accountable for two years with Biden controlling DOJ? ARE THERE POSSIBLE INDICTMENTS NOT VITIATED BY ANY STATUTES OF LIMITATIONS, ASSUMING REPUBLICANS HOLD MALEFACTOR’S FEET TO THE FIRE?
I always look forward to the glut of content waiting for me on weekends. Thank you, Victor. Excellent as always. Question: do you think the vaxxers should receive “amnesty”? Empireoftruth.com
The media in the initial phases of the Vietnam War were very much like today’s media. They were cheer leaders for Kennedy (remember Camelot? Or Marilyn Monroe?) and after his assassination they smoothly aligned themselves with LBJ. The Vietnam effort was spinning up in 1964, but, as McMasters documents in “Dereliction of Duty”, the scale and scope of the effort was intentionally hidden from the public and probably most of the members of Congress. The Joint Chiefs were suborned by exploiting their monomaniacal focus on the specific budgetary needs for their branch of the military. The Republicans chose Goldwater as their candidate in large part because Goldwater understood what a war in Vietnam would require. Ronald Reagan began to play a major role in the second tier of Republican spokesmen at the same time. The media was complicit in supporting LBJ. Goldwater was ridiculed and buried in the election of 1964 by a concerted effort of the media and the Democratic Party. LBJ managed to get his Great Society legislation passed and things looked bright in 1965 and early 1966.
Alas, the recommendations of lower-level military planners for the kind of effort a successful campaign would require (which were ignored by McNamara and hidden in 1964,) were pretty much spot on. As time passed, the McNamara’s war of comparative-attrition began to pay dividends in the form of weekly death tolls of US Marines, Navy and Air Force pilots, and Army ground forces running into the hundreds. The d
The death totals and the wounded, who number about five times higher, could not be hidden. The Navy was expending squadrons of attack jets in futile efforts to drop dumb bombs on small bridges that could be rebuilt overnight. Soviet provided anti-aircraft missiles and radar guided large caliber automatic weapons increased the toll. McNamara’s rules of engagement neutered the major strengths of our military. Additionally, unanticipated operational disasters, like the fire on the aircraft carrier Forrestal, were spiking the casualty counts with alarming frequency. And no strategic goals were gained for this horrific level of sacrifice.
The media had spent three years covering up JFK’s shortcomings, just they had supported LBJ in his domestic and foreign war ambitions. This amounted to a history of about six years of lies and obfuscations by early 1967. The coverups quickly unraveled when some of the media saw an opportunity to cover the attractive headliners who began protesting the war. The Tet Offensive wasn’t the only bad press that the media covered. The Democratic Convention in Chicago was a total disaster for the party. Unlike Tet, the Convention chaos was the real deal.
It was at this point that the media gained ascendancy over both parties in the US. This culminated in the loss of Vietnam to a North Vietnamese armored division in 1974, the resignation of Nixon, and the election of Jimmy Carter. Since that time the media has never played an even-handed role in US p
It was at this point that the media gained ascendancy over both parties in the US. This culminated in the loss of Vietnam to a North Vietnamese armored division in 1974, the resignation of Nixon, and the election of Jimmy Carter. Since that time the media has never played an even-handed role in US politics. Democrat politicians are little more than somewhat gifted actors delivering scripted lies at the command of the media and the backroom crowd that inhabits the DC swamp. Tomorrow’s election will determine whether the media has any reason to regain some semblance of rectitude.
I’m late to last weekend’s party, but sickness has allowed me some pod binging. I loved the discussion of media bias and Vietnam. That was really nuanced given the space and format. I also loved last weekend’s Godfather discussion. It was great to see how fast Victor could condense and revamp Aristotle’s Poetics to do a quick analysis of the movie. Somewhere out there, my college film major buddies are nodding in furious approval.
P.s. Anyone else take a slug of spirits whenever The Hunter Biden Laptop gets mentioned.