hey just a heads up that out of financial necessity I'm pivoting from the consumer protection and tech/telecom policy beat to race-baiting contrarian trolling on substack and incoherent babbling about the NFT space I hope you'll all understand and please click to subscribe
I'm thinking maybe a combination of adorable kitten photos and blatant racism dressed up under the thin veneer of dudebro pseudo-intellectualism? I hear that's hot right now. I'm open to ideas.
I mean I don't want to wade TOO deeply into ONLY blatant contrarian pseudo-intellectual substack racism, as I don't want to scare off too many big corporations looking to leverage my reach to spread disinformation designed to crush reform and stall human progress
so I'm thinking a platform that in the morning involves baseless lambasting of "critical race theory" followed by afternoon pieces in partnership with the American Enterprise Institute cheering on telecom monopolies
then BAM, a kitten photo or video that shakes things up some
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"we're not part of a highly coordinated, internationally funded, billionaire-backed effort to sow division, we're just good faith, red blooded american men who are super concerned about inflation"
it's just gobsmacking how bad the mainstream U.S. press (which is purportedly tasked with unearthing and disseminating truth) is at decoding and candidly debunking this kind of performative partisan astroturfing bullshit
it's going to get so stupid and I may have to tap out
I guess people still don't know this despite 40 years of historical record, but the GOP is never going to vote when it matters in favor of meaningful antitrust reform. Not without dumb caveats that undermine the effort.
Like the idea that ted cruz and Marsha Blackburn in particular could give the slightest shit about antitrust reform and productively reining in corporate power is just absolute fantasy, and yet here we are
The only reason the GOP is even supporting these very narrow and problematic antitrust reform bills (that only focus on big tech and ignore telecom, banking, etc.) is they see it as a path toward some leverage in the quest to force them to carry race baiting propaganda
I've been spending 2022 so far talking to local tribal and community leaders about community broadband efforts, and while a lot is going wrong in this country, I've never seen more productive momentum on this subject, ever
Covid (and photos of kids huddled outside of taco bell just to attend class), combined with the infrastructure bill funding, combined with some state efforts (CA) has just caused an absolute explosion in this space.
I'm not sure telecom monopolies fully understand what's coming
Every week this year I've spent on the phone talking with different local community leaders, tribal reps, and activists and the collective, bipartisan, grass roots momentum to finally fix our shitty broadband is like nothing I've ever seen in 20 years of covering telecom
you can almost hear the russian mob state and their GOP allied shitmerchants cooking up the U.S. equivalent of this performative gibberish for the midterms
honestly if I had stayed in academia after undergrad I would have focused on studying propaganda, because I find this stuff absolutely fascinating
entirely phony movements built on nonsense, grift, and hot air
it's adorable that this story operates from the assumption that this is 100% originating from the U.S., and foreign intelligence agencies aren't also pouring money into this kind of divisive grievance porn
this whole bullshit shtick where rich substack dudes (with rich and famous dads) who haven't bought their own groceries in fifteen years whine about the "media class" not understanding "real america" can go die in a hole
I actually grew up relatively poor in rural america and these two rich smug fucks wouldn't know real rural america if it fired a neon crossbow bolt at their noggin
Taibbi's a substack millionaire with a slipping grip on factual reality and his dad is a famous NBC reporter
and while NYT and Politico are equally out of touch, they now publish fifty interviews a year with MAGA yokels at small town diners
you can rush through the nomination of a goofy halfwit to the FCC if he's in line with AT&T's belief structure (government is always bad, mergers are always good), but try to nominate a real consumer protection ally and it's a 12 month process that moves at a snail's pace
the GOP loves to nit pick about competent consumer advocates (especially women) in positions of regulatory power, but will rubber stamp revolving door regulators with obvious financial conflicts of interest at a speed that rattles the windows