A groundbreaking and meticulously researched anatomy of the Putin regime, Belton’s book shines a light on the pernicious threats Russian money and influence now pose to the west. Deepening social inequality and the rise of populist movements in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis have “left the west wide open to Russia’s aggressive new tactics of fuelling the far right and the far left”. Kremlin largesse has funded political parties across the continent, from the National Front in France to Jobbik in Hungary and the Five Star movement in Italy, which are united in their hostility to both the EU and Nato. The Kremlin’s “black cash”, former Kremlin insider Sergei Pugachev laments, “is like a dirty atomic bomb. In some ways it’s there, in some ways it’s not. Nowadays it’s much harder to trace.” Putin’s People lays bare the scale of the challenge if the west is to decontaminate its politics.
Slack Feed
This is a very plain blog with quotes from and links to articles I found interesting, thought-provoking, or relevant to the times. Linking is neither endorsement nor condemnation. Run by http://willslack.com
17 April, 2024
16 April, 2024
The Real Story Behind NPR’s Current Problems
https://slate.com/business/2024/04/npr-diversity-public-broadcasting-radio.html
Some listeners rightly pointed out that police killed white people too, and often under shady circumstances. When I suggested that we pursue it as a story, I got crickets. When video emerged of a cop shooting white teenager Zachary Hammond during a drug sting operation, I couldn’t get our leadership to green-light reporting on it. Code Switch was the only unit that went to air with something on Hammond’s death. I think that’s because it would have complicated—or acknowledged the complication—of a story where we could smugly position ourselves as on the “right” side.
And that’s what the core editorial problem at NPR is and, frankly, has long been: an abundance of caution that often crossed the border to cowardice. NPR culture encouraged an editorial fixation on finding the exact middle point of the elite political and social thought, planting a flag there, and calling it objectivity. That would more than explain the lack of follow-up on Hunter Biden’s laptop and the lab-leak theory, going full white guilt after George Floyd’s murder, and shifting to indignant white impatience with racial justice now.
Layers of complex relationships made genuine editorial criticism hazardous at NPR. Even in an industry in which office romances happen a lot, NPR has been exceptional, boasting dozens of “met and married” couples. And that doesn’t cover all the quiet couples, besties, and other personal entanglements. All this means that if you criticized someone’s editorial decisions in a meeting, their best friend, sweetheart, or ex might be glowering at you from across the table. Even a mild critique could be met with: You know John’s been having a hard time because his dad just died/wife just left him/kid is having problems. Give him a break. Lots of people who were in relationships with colleagues kept it out of their work, but enough did not that it contributed to a culture where whisper networks replaced open discussion.
15 April, 2024
14 April, 2024
13 April, 2024
12 April, 2024
She couldn’t wait to work for Ryan Walters’ administration. Now she’s worried public schools won’t survive the rest of his term
For the first time, someone once chosen by State Superintendent Ryan Walters to be a leader in his administration – only to later resign — is speaking out, telling News 4 she’s greatly concerned for the future of public education in Oklahoma under Walters’ watch.
If there’s one thing to know about Pamela Smith-Gordon, it’s that she’s devoted most of her life to public schools.
Jared Kushner Has Won and The New York Times Knows It
https://vickyward.substack.com/p/jared-kushner-has-won-and-the-new
I know from experience that Kushner’s word-choice can give his real meaning away. He once told me what he thought of journalists. He said, “If they were more talented they’d be in real estate making money.”
You could charitably paraphrase that as, “Mr. Kushner said he believes journalists are missing out on more lucrative job opportunities elsewhere.” Which has an entirely different meaning – and does not tell you who Mr. Kushner really is.
Gell-Mann amnesia effect (from a Michael Crichton speech)
https://web.archive.org/web/20070714204136/http://www.michaelcrichton.net/speech-whyspeculate.html
Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.
But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.
11 April, 2024
President Trump and the Shallow State: Disloyalty at the Highest Levels
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/psq.12792
President Donald Trump often complained about the “deep state” of career civil servants who, he asserted, were determined to undermine his presidency. But it was his own presidential appointees who most visibly resisted his directives. Political appointees are expected to be the most loyal advocates of a president's policy agenda, riding herd on the many bureaucracies of the executive branch. This article analyzes resistance to Trump's policy directives by his own appointees in the White House, cabinet, military, and intelligence community. It concludes that this level of resistance is unprecedented in the modern presidency.