May 2, 2022·edited May 2, 2022Liked by Robert B. Hubbell
Mr. Hubbell, Thank you for this really magnificent piece of writing about what I have thought for a long time was one of the great dangers to our culture, close behind climate change. If we somehow can come to our senses and change the practicalities of our daily lives in time to save the planet, we will find ourselves in a world marked by the first principle of an authoritarian government--the merger of state and press. In fact, unless there is a radical shift, your (and WaPo's) catalogue of billionaire's and their ownership of a staggering percentage of our supposedly "public" forums, suggest strongly that we are already there.
I am of the opinion that Nancy Pelosi and her team are a powerful force for good in this situation and that, lf any group of people can get this job done, they can. Everything I read tells me they have gathered every shred of evidence necessary to stop this madness and call to account the felons who have perpetrated it. But, I am full of fear and near despair because we have been here before. The Jan 6 committee is better prepared, Pelosi--for all her flaws--is a bulldog in her defense of the constitution and this democracy. I trust her implicitly. But, as our defense is better this time, so the landscape of corruption and the walls that now shield the autocracy we seek to break are higher and more intricately manned. Is there a corner of our world that has not been infected? We got caught off guard and didn't see how bad it was--because we all, myself certainly one, dislike inconvenience and unpleasantness and seem to believe if we ignore them long enough they will just go away.
I am sorry for such a grim post this early in my morning here in the Southeast.
I have expressed before, and still don't have the answer, my fear that in writing and discussing the dangers you so cleanly lay out, we are just giving these monsters what they crave--more publicity. What would be the result of silence? I honestly don't know, but it turns my stomach to be thinking about Elon Musk and the Technocrats and Sean Hannity and Rupert Murdoch before I've had my first cup of tea.
And with all that, I thank you again for one of the clearest statements I've seen of this core danger.
Way past time for calling out Rupert’s evil. Thank you. He has poisoned this country even more than Rush did. He put Rush, Lee Atwater, Roger Stone, Newt, and so many more hateful ideologues on steroids and spewed them over the citizenry ad nauseam. I watched it up close and personal for decades. I kept thinking “we aren’t that stupid” but we were, and are. Rupert won’t stop, who will stop him. As Ayn Rand said “The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.” Indeed
Dear Robert. I sent you an email. I hope you can respond. Because I could use your optimism right now.
I've just been depressed about what feels like the imminent collapse of our liberal era. That I'm looking at a future where there is no more social progress because the GOP packs all of our courts with right wingers. That Trump-backed secretaries of state will overturn election results and make it so Democrats never win again. That gay people like me will spend the rest of our lives watching helplessly as everything we achieved is erased by the GOP.
Trump-clone people are voted into place assuring the validity …and the actual counting of the votes. The power they will have to toss votes they “don’t like” is absolute.
All progress will be rescinded once the Repubs get control of congress and the presidency. LGBT people are being erased and harrassed everywhere in the country. POC are being systematically gerrymandered out of existence politically.
My family and people on here keep telling me it can't happen, but then I see experts saying "If you don't think it can happen, you haven't been paying attention."
My biggest fear more than anything is that Republicans who support the big lie will get into positions of power and throw out votes they don't like, making it impossible for Democrats to win. I feel sick thinking about this, because they would have a permanent majority and nothing will ever get better.
Gay rights and abortion would be gone forever and I will live the rest of my life in despair while everyone else is too burned out to vote and gives up trying.
I don't know why I should have hope that things will get better. It feels like everyone is succumbing to fatalism and allowing the most evil people to take over because they're too burned out.
"Part of the issue is that it’s increasingly hard to imagine that American life will get better anytime soon. During the last five years, it was at least possible to identify dates at which things might turn around. The midterms offered an opportunity to curb Trump. The 2020 election was a chance to get rid of him. The depredations of the pandemic had to be endured until vaccines were widely available.
But now? The Republican Party is as deranged and authoritarian as ever. Biden’s agenda is stuck in a congressional standoff that’s at once frustrating, terrifying and extremely boring. The pandemic is dragging on, without an obvious offramp. We’re completely incapable of addressing the onrushing calamity of climate change. Burnout is marked by feelings of futility, and there’s a lot of that going around."
My thoughts are saying "What's the point of being happy and enjoying life when the future looks so dark? Will this be the world you leave behind?" They are suggesting there won't be widespread protests for abortion rights because people are too burned out by covid. Have people surrendered to lives of despair?
Please respond. I have been depressed for weeks thinking about how there would be no fixing things if the GOP took over and need some hope.
The Oleg Y. Tinkov story has its predecessors. Mihail Khodorkovsky, one of Russia's wealthiest men after the Soviet dissolution, was arrested in 2003, tried in 2005, and convicted for tax evasion and embezzlement. The arrest followed, and was likely tied to, Khodorkovsky's criticisms of Putin and his funding opposition parties. Inexplicably, Putin pardoned him in 2013. In exile in Britain, he remains an active critic of Russia's political system.
I guess I'm more jaded than you, Robert. I was not particularly surprised to find out that Tucker (I want to change the first letter of his name, but I'll forbear on this refined site) was an active agent of the Trump conspiracy. Many politicians--even presidents, perhaps especially presidents--have had close relationships with particular reporters or columnists. Or editors. It's usually pretty clear, as it was with TFG. The real problem comes when other reporters or columnists are not free to report and to criticize. We haven't got to that point in this country, yet. I am more disturbed by Musk taking over Twitter, although it may be that Twitter is ripe for a fall--i.e., competition. But we can't depend on that.
And what's really at fault--as you recognize--is that there is much too much concentration of wealth. The Internet and the dot.com boom were supposed to even things out, but if anything they have made the economy more stratified. "Soak the rich!" has been a powerful slogan in the past--and I bet it could be even more powerful today. So, all together now, "SOAK THE RICH!"
Five years ago my wife and me took a trip that included a visit to Sequoia. I was astounded by the number of trees that were just cut down and allowed to rot when clearly they had some value. The fire danger was obvious! Beetle killed wood is beautiful for siding which we saw as far back as the early 70s in Colorado!
I have made a list of links in this newsletter and already posted two in more than one place. These are fodder for the "drip, drip, drip" approach to reaching people who are misguided or unaware. Thanks for lining it up for us to take action, Robert!
Along with all the billionaire media projects, with their "wealth" of self-serving disinformation and middle school boy humour, there is TikTok-a woefully under-monitored trove of despair and suggestions as to how to end one's life or engage in self-mutilation. Still, the answer is not censorship, but engagement with, and education of, those who are being duped.
I think Bezos and Bloomberg try to manage and provide fair and reasonable coverage of the news and issues of the day. Zuckerberg wants to at a certain level but somehow can’t manage it and give up enormous profits. Murdoch doesn’t really care. The First Amendment rights have been trampled on and taken well beyond the original intent and viewers and readers have become numb and frankly don’t care about what Fox is promoting and the media helps create more attention to the outlandish comments by calling attention to them. We are in a vicious circle and merry go round.
Just wondering in light of this article...whether you and your Managing Editor have canceled your cable subscription. If you have you should let us know!
It is very hard for folks to understand new things when they are scared. Everyone is scared now. Finding the strength to understand complex causes of what is making you scared is something many cannot do. Life is in the way of taking on the new tasks. Watching the PBS show "My Father's War" was a reminder of those who resisted, worked against odds, dealt daily with devastation and death, and some found ways to improve a piece of what they could impact....like getting Jewish children out of the pipeline, giving visas to go exit through Spain to a ship to the US, getting food to those in hiding. We have to do our part, even our small part and do the best we can to change the course of what is happening on so many fronts. Pick a front.
As NYT stated, Tucker “put Trumpism over Trump”. Hannity: Why didn’t I think of that. 🤔
In Florida, many letters to ed in our local Gannett paper as well as Orlando Sentinel.OS editorials are exposing Republicans and the dark $$$. Local chair of Repub Exec committee calling for Fl House Rep and DeSantis bully buddy to resign.
“Don’t Say Gay” protest yesterday with 300 of our .community members. Floridians are fighting back !
From World Central Kitchen newsletter: 16.4 million meals served in Ukraine.
Cathy Learoyd : “ If you want the Rich to get Richer at your expense vote Republican. If you want a fair deal for all the people vote Democrat. We, the People, All of us this time! “
I would like to share a friends recent posting on a Seattle digital journal about his thoughts on how Twitter could serve s positive purpose in the civic commons going forward. Worth a read.
Anyone who doesn't want to take seriously your description of the devastation in the Sierra might want to watch THE ROAD, the movie made from Cormac McCarthy's bleak novel. It gives a visceral sense of what a world turned to ash might look like.
Mr. Hubbell, Thank you for this really magnificent piece of writing about what I have thought for a long time was one of the great dangers to our culture, close behind climate change. If we somehow can come to our senses and change the practicalities of our daily lives in time to save the planet, we will find ourselves in a world marked by the first principle of an authoritarian government--the merger of state and press. In fact, unless there is a radical shift, your (and WaPo's) catalogue of billionaire's and their ownership of a staggering percentage of our supposedly "public" forums, suggest strongly that we are already there.
I am of the opinion that Nancy Pelosi and her team are a powerful force for good in this situation and that, lf any group of people can get this job done, they can. Everything I read tells me they have gathered every shred of evidence necessary to stop this madness and call to account the felons who have perpetrated it. But, I am full of fear and near despair because we have been here before. The Jan 6 committee is better prepared, Pelosi--for all her flaws--is a bulldog in her defense of the constitution and this democracy. I trust her implicitly. But, as our defense is better this time, so the landscape of corruption and the walls that now shield the autocracy we seek to break are higher and more intricately manned. Is there a corner of our world that has not been infected? We got caught off guard and didn't see how bad it was--because we all, myself certainly one, dislike inconvenience and unpleasantness and seem to believe if we ignore them long enough they will just go away.
I am sorry for such a grim post this early in my morning here in the Southeast.
I have expressed before, and still don't have the answer, my fear that in writing and discussing the dangers you so cleanly lay out, we are just giving these monsters what they crave--more publicity. What would be the result of silence? I honestly don't know, but it turns my stomach to be thinking about Elon Musk and the Technocrats and Sean Hannity and Rupert Murdoch before I've had my first cup of tea.
And with all that, I thank you again for one of the clearest statements I've seen of this core danger.
Way past time for calling out Rupert’s evil. Thank you. He has poisoned this country even more than Rush did. He put Rush, Lee Atwater, Roger Stone, Newt, and so many more hateful ideologues on steroids and spewed them over the citizenry ad nauseam. I watched it up close and personal for decades. I kept thinking “we aren’t that stupid” but we were, and are. Rupert won’t stop, who will stop him. As Ayn Rand said “The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.” Indeed
Dear Robert. I sent you an email. I hope you can respond. Because I could use your optimism right now.
I've just been depressed about what feels like the imminent collapse of our liberal era. That I'm looking at a future where there is no more social progress because the GOP packs all of our courts with right wingers. That Trump-backed secretaries of state will overturn election results and make it so Democrats never win again. That gay people like me will spend the rest of our lives watching helplessly as everything we achieved is erased by the GOP.
Trump-clone people are voted into place assuring the validity …and the actual counting of the votes. The power they will have to toss votes they “don’t like” is absolute.
All progress will be rescinded once the Repubs get control of congress and the presidency. LGBT people are being erased and harrassed everywhere in the country. POC are being systematically gerrymandered out of existence politically.
My family and people on here keep telling me it can't happen, but then I see experts saying "If you don't think it can happen, you haven't been paying attention."
My biggest fear more than anything is that Republicans who support the big lie will get into positions of power and throw out votes they don't like, making it impossible for Democrats to win. I feel sick thinking about this, because they would have a permanent majority and nothing will ever get better.
Gay rights and abortion would be gone forever and I will live the rest of my life in despair while everyone else is too burned out to vote and gives up trying.
I don't know why I should have hope that things will get better. It feels like everyone is succumbing to fatalism and allowing the most evil people to take over because they're too burned out.
"Part of the issue is that it’s increasingly hard to imagine that American life will get better anytime soon. During the last five years, it was at least possible to identify dates at which things might turn around. The midterms offered an opportunity to curb Trump. The 2020 election was a chance to get rid of him. The depredations of the pandemic had to be endured until vaccines were widely available.
But now? The Republican Party is as deranged and authoritarian as ever. Biden’s agenda is stuck in a congressional standoff that’s at once frustrating, terrifying and extremely boring. The pandemic is dragging on, without an obvious offramp. We’re completely incapable of addressing the onrushing calamity of climate change. Burnout is marked by feelings of futility, and there’s a lot of that going around."
My thoughts are saying "What's the point of being happy and enjoying life when the future looks so dark? Will this be the world you leave behind?" They are suggesting there won't be widespread protests for abortion rights because people are too burned out by covid. Have people surrendered to lives of despair?
Please respond. I have been depressed for weeks thinking about how there would be no fixing things if the GOP took over and need some hope.
The Oleg Y. Tinkov story has its predecessors. Mihail Khodorkovsky, one of Russia's wealthiest men after the Soviet dissolution, was arrested in 2003, tried in 2005, and convicted for tax evasion and embezzlement. The arrest followed, and was likely tied to, Khodorkovsky's criticisms of Putin and his funding opposition parties. Inexplicably, Putin pardoned him in 2013. In exile in Britain, he remains an active critic of Russia's political system.
At some point I am hoping that you will mention ThirdAct.org and encourage people to take the pledge. Elders must act for the sake of our grandkids.
I guess I'm more jaded than you, Robert. I was not particularly surprised to find out that Tucker (I want to change the first letter of his name, but I'll forbear on this refined site) was an active agent of the Trump conspiracy. Many politicians--even presidents, perhaps especially presidents--have had close relationships with particular reporters or columnists. Or editors. It's usually pretty clear, as it was with TFG. The real problem comes when other reporters or columnists are not free to report and to criticize. We haven't got to that point in this country, yet. I am more disturbed by Musk taking over Twitter, although it may be that Twitter is ripe for a fall--i.e., competition. But we can't depend on that.
And what's really at fault--as you recognize--is that there is much too much concentration of wealth. The Internet and the dot.com boom were supposed to even things out, but if anything they have made the economy more stratified. "Soak the rich!" has been a powerful slogan in the past--and I bet it could be even more powerful today. So, all together now, "SOAK THE RICH!"
Five years ago my wife and me took a trip that included a visit to Sequoia. I was astounded by the number of trees that were just cut down and allowed to rot when clearly they had some value. The fire danger was obvious! Beetle killed wood is beautiful for siding which we saw as far back as the early 70s in Colorado!
I have made a list of links in this newsletter and already posted two in more than one place. These are fodder for the "drip, drip, drip" approach to reaching people who are misguided or unaware. Thanks for lining it up for us to take action, Robert!
Along with all the billionaire media projects, with their "wealth" of self-serving disinformation and middle school boy humour, there is TikTok-a woefully under-monitored trove of despair and suggestions as to how to end one's life or engage in self-mutilation. Still, the answer is not censorship, but engagement with, and education of, those who are being duped.
I think Bezos and Bloomberg try to manage and provide fair and reasonable coverage of the news and issues of the day. Zuckerberg wants to at a certain level but somehow can’t manage it and give up enormous profits. Murdoch doesn’t really care. The First Amendment rights have been trampled on and taken well beyond the original intent and viewers and readers have become numb and frankly don’t care about what Fox is promoting and the media helps create more attention to the outlandish comments by calling attention to them. We are in a vicious circle and merry go round.
Just wondering in light of this article...whether you and your Managing Editor have canceled your cable subscription. If you have you should let us know!
It is very hard for folks to understand new things when they are scared. Everyone is scared now. Finding the strength to understand complex causes of what is making you scared is something many cannot do. Life is in the way of taking on the new tasks. Watching the PBS show "My Father's War" was a reminder of those who resisted, worked against odds, dealt daily with devastation and death, and some found ways to improve a piece of what they could impact....like getting Jewish children out of the pipeline, giving visas to go exit through Spain to a ship to the US, getting food to those in hiding. We have to do our part, even our small part and do the best we can to change the course of what is happening on so many fronts. Pick a front.
Hannity and Trump, partners in crime, literally!
As NYT stated, Tucker “put Trumpism over Trump”. Hannity: Why didn’t I think of that. 🤔
In Florida, many letters to ed in our local Gannett paper as well as Orlando Sentinel.OS editorials are exposing Republicans and the dark $$$. Local chair of Repub Exec committee calling for Fl House Rep and DeSantis bully buddy to resign.
“Don’t Say Gay” protest yesterday with 300 of our .community members. Floridians are fighting back !
From World Central Kitchen newsletter: 16.4 million meals served in Ukraine.
Cathy Learoyd : “ If you want the Rich to get Richer at your expense vote Republican. If you want a fair deal for all the people vote Democrat. We, the People, All of us this time! “
I would like to share a friends recent posting on a Seattle digital journal about his thoughts on how Twitter could serve s positive purpose in the civic commons going forward. Worth a read.
https://www.postalley.org/2022/04/29/dear-elon-what-twitter-could-be/
Anyone who doesn't want to take seriously your description of the devastation in the Sierra might want to watch THE ROAD, the movie made from Cormac McCarthy's bleak novel. It gives a visceral sense of what a world turned to ash might look like.