Random Notes on Current Events

The Methods of Madness

Facebook posts of recent vintage:

Friday, September 19. The Republican reply to those who insist that Jimmy Kimmel's "suspension" is a threat to free speech has four logical stages. First, yes, of course Kimmel has a right to express his opinion. But, second, his opinions are not funny, and because they're not humorous, they must be judged by their accuracy. Third, under such scrutiny, treated as reporting on the news, the question that follows is whether his remarks “serve the public interest,” and if they do not, they can be subject to FCC discipline. Fourth, and this is the bottom line, free speech is any case moot, because according to the logic of Citizens United, the rights of property must in all instances supersede the rights of persons: the Constitution is malleable, to be sure, but it cannot be interpreted in such a way that the natural right of property is eclipsed. This progression is a betrayal of the founders' purposes, among other violations of trust. It also depends on arbitrary definitions of humor, accuracy, and the public interest. No matter—"free enterprise" must prevail.

Thursday, September 18. I've been as surprised as anyone by how quickly the law firms and the (mostly private) universities have caved, and now, by how quickly the media corps. have similarly slunk away when threatened by Trump and MAGA Nation. After all, these are the institutions with the most immediate, material interests in the rule of law and the rights of free speech--without this rule and these rights, they have no reason to exist, let alone excel. But it has slowly dawned on me that the people who run them have come to believe that the only reason for their existence is to make more profit, and that to excel is to increase the bottom line. They have been rendered so stupid and supine by the idiocies of shareholder capitalism that they genuinely believe all good things flow from the validation of mere greed, then the display and the celebration of their wealth. This is madness, but it is at least explicable insanity. The barbarians have not only crossed the river, they now run the seat of empire.

The wonderful irony here is that the great crusader for capitalism, Milton Friedman, is the source of the neoliberal doctrine that has hollowed out the thinking of those who, once upon a time, saw themselves as trustees of the system over which they presided, on the assumption that it embraced the highest possible morality. I mean the doctrine of shareholder capitalism, which dictates that the sole responsibility of CEOs is to the bottom line—to “investors,” no matter how passive they may be as pensioners with a slice of an index fund. It is this daft notion that has foreshortened the standpoint of capital, reducing its horizon of expectations to the next quarterly earnings report, imprisoned the keepers of the means of production within a time frame that is downright childish, and confined them to a moral universe that is simply murderous.

Wednesday, September 17. Larry Ellison, the Trump fan who owns Oracle, is poised to buy a stake in Tik-Tok, along with Andreesen-Horowitz, one principal of which, Marc Andreesen, is the author of the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” (2023), an insanely pro-market, anti-regulation tract that gleefully quotes from the “Futurist Manifesto” (1909) composed by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the enthusiast of fascism. Meanwhile David Ellison's Skydance-Paramount/CBS, which fired Stephen Colbert, is in talks to buy Discovery/Time Warner, which owns CNN, and yes, David is Larry’s son. With ABC already cowed by Trump's lawsuit, what platform will be left standing to deliver real news and something like anti-fascist opinion? “Morning Joe” on MSNBC? Oh, please. I guess we'll all be reading as well as writing newsletters at Substack. Until . . .