I Hate the Media
Interviewed
by Louis James, Editor, International
Speculator
Recently
by Doug Casey:
Peak Oil
L:
Hola Doug. What’s on your mind this week?
Doug:
The color yellow. As in “yellow journalism” – which seems almost
the only kind we have these days. Of course, to be fair, inflammatory,
shamelessly dishonest “man bites dog” journalism has always been
the dominant kind, simply because it sells papers. But we’ll see
more than the usual amount in the next couple of months, simply
because elections lend themselves to it; politics seems to stimulate
the reptilian part of the brain, the most primitive part. Both politics
and the reptilian brain relate well to the yellow press.
Anyway, like
many people, I watched snippets of the Republican National Convention
in Tampa. Maybe, since I’m engaging in punditry, I should have watched
the whole damn thing. But I simply couldn’t force myself to watch
even all the parts that were broadcast, because it was just too
boring and degrading. I can’t imagine how the people who were there
for the whole four days were able to remain awake for the whole
thing. Perhaps this is proof that zombies really do exist. What
kind of people could take such a charade seriously? It was all canned
speeches and scripted events that were basically dishonest. Politics
has always been dishonest, of course, but at least it used to be
unscripted and mildly entertaining…
L:
Wait a minute – what about the now much-discussed Eastwood incident?
By all accounts, that was unscripted and perhaps even unwelcome
among the convention organizers.
Doug:
I did watch Clint and enjoyed his speech, which appeared to be unscripted.
He’s a skilled actor and entertainer, so I’ve got to believe it
was really off the cuff. I’ve read in the papers – which means I
don’t really know anything except some reporter’s guess – but I’ve
read that Clint was only supposed to give a five-minute, canned
speech. Romney and the convention organizers were caught off guard
when Eastwood asked for a chair to be brought on stage; it was thought
he wanted to use it to sit down. But he then proceeded to have a
very funny conversation
with an invisible Obama. One reason I liked it is that he treated
Obama with the respect he deserved. It’s about time people stopped
treating presidents as if they were Roman emperors.
L:
I’ve watched that segment on YouTube and noticed that he used the
word “libertarian,” which I doubt the RNC would have approved in
advance. So I can believe that “Dirty Harry” was shooting from the
hip, as it were.
Doug:
I agree – I’m sure they would not have approved of that. I expect
the Republicans will do everything they can to discount, denigrate,
and destroy the Libertarian Party candidacy of Gary Johnson for
president. They know Johnson is likely to draw more votes from them
than from the Democrats. And of course, Ron Paul was made a veritable
nonperson. The only mention he got at the convention didn’t include
any acknowledgment of some of his most important propositions, like
ending the drug war, ending foreign interventions and wars, and
abolishing the Fed. These people are dishonest and manipulative
through and through.
The other thing
Clint did, as I recall, was only to mention Romney twice, and not
in way that was a particularly strong endorsement. It took courage
on Clint’s part in that forum.
L:
I noticed that too; his focus was on the people, not the candidate.
The biggest cheer he got was when he spoke of the people and said,
“We own this country… politicians are employees of ours.”
Doug:
Yes. I’m sure that also rankled the suits running the show. But
the fact that Clint’s sincere, unscripted comments are so exceptional
tells us a lot about the rest of the drivel at such events. It’s
like he came up with the idea shortly before he went on stage and
was truly speaking extemporaneously. It wasn’t approved by the Politburo,
like absolutely everything else emanating from the convention was.
The press coverage
of the incident is a good example of the sort of thing that makes
me despise reporters. In a way, it’s a litmus test of the psychology
of the average journalist, how they reacted to that thing… It says
more about them than it does about Eastwood, how they reported on
it and what they said about it. So many of them focused on how he
hesitated, fumbled, repeated himself, and so forth, scoffing at
his remarks as being just an old man’s rant. The snide
comments of Michael Moore, the Evil Party’s answer to Jabba
the Hutt, are fairly typical.
It was clear
to me that Clint spoke from the heart, mistakes and all. I believe
that 300 million Americans out there are starving for straight talk
from the heart of someone they like – and everyone loves Clint.
My guess is that most everybody who isn’t an ideologue of either
the Stupid Party or the Evil Party really resonated with his sentiments.
The only downside is they’ll wind up helping the feckless Romney.
It was night-and-day
different from the slick speeches by the horrible politicians. They
all sounded like they’d rehearsed their speeches dozens of times.
Every one of them sounded phony – which they are. I preferred the
old days when you never knew what the outcome of the convention
would be, and the speeches could actually tell you something about
the men giving them – or at least have entertainment value. When
did all this change? My guess is in the ’50s, with broadcast TV
and the invention of the teleprompter. The whole convention was
a flavorless, odorless, sanitized bore – except for Clint.
L:
I was struck by those criticisms of Eastwood’s delivery as well.
Clint Eastwood was born in 1930 – give the guy a break! These critics
will be lucky to be half as eloquent when they are in their 80s.
But even that’s beside the point; what should matter most is what
he said, not how he said it. These same media hacks would never
speak so disrespectfully of a venerable statesman they agreed with.
Doug:
I have nothing but contempt for these blow-dried airheads on TV
news shows. They pontificate and tell you what you’re supposed to
think – but they’re really not journalists. They just read the establishment
press releases, thereby helping to prop it up. Instead of being
the Fourth Estate – a private-sector watchdog and counterbalance
to state power – they just make themselves lapdogs of politicians.
If you watch
something like The
Daily Show, Jon Stewart will often show clips of different
so-called journalists in juxtaposition to each other – he did this
regarding the Republican Convention – and you can see that the reporters
all use the same words. It’s like they are all reading the same
script or keying off each other – it’s a herd mentality. This is
one reason print journalism has gone downhill, as well. In the era
before the TV, a journalist had to witness things in person and
draw an independent conclusion. It wasn’t technically feasible to
know what everybody else was groupthinking in real time. The noble,
lone journalist in the mold of H. L. Mencken is completely gone
from the scene today.
L:
I know what you mean, but a TV news anchor isn’t really a reporter.
He or she is an attractive actor hired to read the news others research,
because their faces increase ratings. Is it fair to criticize such
people for not being investigative journalists?
Doug:
No, I guess it’s not. They are hired to look sincere and look good.
I believe it’s well established that people in general are prone
to like and believe people they find attractive – that’s the basis
for hiring TV news anchors – that and having completely unremarkable,
predictable, “mainstream” views. But it’s still not a good thing.
To have a system that relies on attractive but ignorant or misinformed
people regurgitating reporting written by others is dangerous. The
so-called Fourth Estate is dying.
You know, that
very term – Fourth Estate – is being used more now, at the very
time that the institution itself is changing its essence. The idea
of a Fourth Estate arose with the Industrial Revolution and the
inception of capitalism – the first three basically being the church,
the “nobles,” and everyone else – the 99%. The Fourth Estate has
historically been a bit outside all that, but certainly outside
the church and the state. Their purpose was to tell it like it is,
keep things in balance, and be impartial truth-tellers. Major cities
each had dozens of papers. But now the Fourth Estate has truly been
captured by the ruling classes.
That’s the
bad news. The good news is that we have the Internet. The stuff
people report there may not always be any more accurate than the
mass media, but at least it’s independent – it’s not a mouthpiece
for the Establishment. As far as I’m concerned, the Fourth Estate
has betrayed its basic raison d’être, and no longer serves
much of a useful purpose.
L:
Which brings us back to the people who write the stories or compose
the video coverage – the kind of investigators who are supposed
to make a show like 60 Minutes deliver hidden truth to
a population that needs to know…
Doug:
Unfortunately, they seem to be cut from pretty much the same cloth
as the reporters who write for outfits like the New York Times
or, God forbid, USA Today – something I feel sheepish about
reading in public. They all went to the same universities, where
they were taught the same ideas and values by the same teachers
– who are all statists of one stripe or another. They are all so
deeply inculcated in this worldview, they don’t even know they are
in it…
L:
Which is why journalists who don’t work for right-wing rags never
admit that there is such a thing as “liberal media bias.” Their
colored glasses have been on for so long, they don’t even realize
they wear them.
Doug:
Exactly. The 60 Minutes guys fell flat on their faces when
they didn’t call Ben Bernanke out for
contradicting himself on their show, first saying the Fed was
printing money, then saying it wasn’t. If these guys are the toughest
watchdogs we have, we’re in big trouble. The best sources of news
on TV are probably The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
As comedians, they serve the role of the court jester and can say
things to the king that nobody else dares to. It’s a sad testimony.
L:
But there are exceptions, like John
Stossel.
Doug:
Of course, but again, it’s the exception that tests the rule; the
fact that Stossel is so extraordinary tells us a lot about what
is ordinary. You can see this clearly when you get a bunch of reporters
together on an impromptu talk show, like Meet the Press
or whatever; what you see is a bunch of opinionated people, some
somewhat to the left, some somewhat to the right of center, yelling
at each other. It’s never an intelligent discussion of ideas and
principles at all. For instance, there’s never a discussion of whether
Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid are correct areas for government
involvement – that’s completely accepted and a given. Even with
Obamacare or Romneycare the discussion is only one of whether it’s
affordable or efficient, not whether it’s ethically defensible.
It’s just glib one-liners and catch phrases.
L:
Whoever has the best sound bite wins.
Doug:
Just so. Political talk shows are frustrating and embarrassing to
watch. I just want to wash my hands of the whole mess, but I guess
I’ll have to watch at least a little of the Democrats’ Convention,
just to see what kind of charade they put on. I expect it will be
more enthusiastic than that of the Republicans, because at least
the Democrats actually have some principles… even if they’re completely
bent, destructive, and statist principles. It should be some show,
maybe like the Nuremburg rally.
L:
Morbid curiosity?
Doug:
Yes, and very unappealing. It’s literally like watching something
die. The capacity of the masses to sit on their sofas and watch
endless hours of canned drivel on TV is increasingly convincing
me that libertarians and other free-thinkers are actually genetic
mutants. We can mate with Boobus americanus intellectually
about as well as a human can mate physically with a chimpanzee.
L:
Mutants… or at least an uncommon personality type.
Doug:
Either way, we are so few – it’s hard to have any hope of reason
ever winning the day. My friend Jeff Berwick was caught in a spate
of optimism the other day, which started with him guessing that
maybe 10,000 new people become libertarians every day – a great-sounding
number. Then he took out his calculator and realized that even if
the population of earth was stable that, even at that rate, it would
take something like 2,000 years before everyone stopped thinking
like a criminal.
Communication
is critical, of course. But while that’s become easier, in some
ways, like the Internet, it may be increasingly difficult in others.
The masses are addled by the mind-numbing rays from their TVs, and
there are scores of millions more addled by psychiatric drugs, and
hundreds of millions more by generations of government miseducation.
On the bright
side – you know I like to always look on the bright side – the Internet
could be bigger than all those things. The big media corporations
no longer have a stranglehold on the news. These days, anyone with
a phone has audio- and video-recording capability and can be a reporter.
With the Internet, any of these people can get word of what they
see out to the entire world.
L:
A new, 21st century version of the Fourth Estate?
Doug:
Yes; the truth is out there. But as with everything else, it’s subject
to Pareto’s
Law. So, 80% of what’s out there is crap, and 80% of what’s
left is merely okay. But that remaining 4% of quality, uncensored,
free information flow is extremely valuable. More good news: because
people increasingly realize that 80% of everything is crap, they’re
becoming evermore discriminating – which is a very good thing. People
used to slavishly believe everything in the newspapers just because
it was written; now they’re necessarily more skeptical, which means
they’re forced to be more thoughtful.
But as great
as this is, it’s like Jesus of Nazareth said: “He who has ears,
let him hear.” For the distributed and free reporting we now have
via the Internet to do much good, people need to question what they’re
told and look for the truth – that’s not going to happen if they
only use the ‘Net for social media and porn. After generations of
government schooling, where critical thinking is the last thing
they want to teach, people willing to do this are few and far between.
L:
You’re an atheist quoting the Bible?
Doug:
Why not? I can read. Everyone should read the Bible, along
with Richard Dawkins, of course.
L:
Indeed. Investment implications?
Doug:
Nothing I haven’t said before, but that doesn’t make it any less
true. The terminal corruption of the major news corporations and
the lack of interest in seeking the truth among the general population
augurs very poorly for the prospects of the US and the current world
order. This creates speculative opportunities, which we work hard
on uncovering in our publications, but prospects for mainstream
investments are not good. Western civilization is truly in decline
and far down the slippery slope.
L:
You wrote an article some years ago on how to profit from the coming
collapse of Western civilization…
Doug:
Yes – which brings me back to the color yellow, but in a positive
context this time: the yellow metal. Now the collapse is beginning,
my advice is the same: accumulate
gold – not as an investment, but for safety. For profit, speculate
on the various bubbles and other trends government interventions
in response to the unfolding crisis bring about. Rational investment
is not an option in this context (remembering that investment is
deploying capital to create more capital). Hopefully, investment
will again be a viable option after the ongoing crisis bottoms;
it depends in good degree how most people view the role of government.
We all have to be speculators now, if we want to make money, and
we have to be “gold bugs” if we want to come through the storm with
minimal loss of wealth.
L:
And for more on that, readers could hardly do better than to come
to our conference on “Navigating
the Politicized Economy” this week in southern California.
Doug:
Or – while we’re plugging our own products – they could read your
newsletter for our best speculative guidance.
L:
Okay, but enough with the crass commercial messages. More soon from
California!
Doug:
Looking forward to it.
The American
economy has never been as centralized as it is today… and Doug’s
warning that this centralization has made mainstream investing a
poor bet has never been more true.
That’s why
we’ve teamed up with Sprott, Inc. to host Navigating the Politicized
Economy, a critical investors’ summit in Carlsbad, California
held September 7-9. It will feature 28 financial luminaries – including
Doug Casey, Rick Rule, and Eric Sprott – who will reveal how they
plan to leverage today’s centralized economy to create new wealth.
If you’re not
attending, you can still profit from every recorded presentation
and every piece of actionable investment advice attendees will hear
with the Summit Audio Collection. Order
before the Summit ends on September 9 and you will save $100.
September
6, 2012
Doug
Casey (send him mail)
is
a best-selling author and chairman of Casey
Research, LLC., publishers of Casey’s
International Speculator.
Copyright
© 2012 Casey
Research