Struggle Sessions

At some point in the 1920s....in the old Soviet Union, they went to a unqiue concept which translate over to mean 'struggle sessions' or 'denunciation meetings'.

In simple terms....folks in your neighborhood, village or town would gather in a group, and you WOULD BE asked (forced is a better word) admit your faults, problems, weaknesses, etc.  

This would turn into a humiliation session very quickly.  

Physical violence and beatings?  They were generally allowed.  You couldn't kill the idiot, but you could rough them up enough that they felt the pain.

Accusations would be thrown at the guy or gal.....with no one caring if they were true or not.  In some ways....it was just pure entertainment for the crowds gathered.

At some point in the 1930s....as communism spread in China....they adapted to the gimmick as well.

As time went by....these were fairly scripted out, with intended goals at each session.

At some point in both the history of the USSR and Mao-China....the struggle sessions were deemed 'finished'.  There was simply not anyone much left to humiliate or anything to admit.

In the book '1984', this whole philosophy was laid out and referred to as the 'two-minutes of hate'.  It was meant as a tool for people to get aggressions out, and everyone was a target at some point in time.

If you look around today....these struggle sessions are fully implemented and used in various settings (high school, college, churches, places of work, the news, entertainment, etc).  

People rarely identify this as a 1920s Soviet or 1930s Chinese-Communist gimmick, but that's where they all originated.  

Just curious how we forget what history has come and gone. 

Joe's Advice to CNN: "No One Listens To You."

 I could have said this back three years ago, when all this daytime schedule was 80-percent 'experts-hacking-Trump' on CNN.

Amanpour?  In the past twelve months?  Zero minutes.

Don Lemon?  Past twelve months?  Zero minutes.

Acosta?  Past twelve months?  Zero minutes.

Anderson Cooper?  Past twelve months?  Probably twenty total minutes.

Blitzer?  Past twelve months?  Probably thirty total minutes.

Doctor Gupta?  Past twelve months?  Via CNN, maybe sixty minutes.  But I watched his entire interview on Joe Rogan's show.

Quest?  Past twelve months?  Zero minutes.

Stelter?  Zero for past twelve months.

Tapper?  Thirty minutes for the past year.  

Rogan is correct.....there's just nothing there but constant lecture type chatter.  

CNN and Rogan

 I sat and watched a 'painful' piece of CNN journalism in the last hour.  Topic?  Well...they (CNN) more or less admitted that they can't understand Joe Rogan, so they assembled some outside-of-the-box CNN discussion group to lay out the Rogan landscape.

I made it through about a dozen minutes and turned it off.  Several things bothered me.

First, why this insistence to monitor and control Rogan?  He doesn't present news.  He just simply interviews people.  

Second, is there even some Rogan-expert out there?  I pondered that a good bit.

Third, even if you felt that you understood Rogan.....then what?  Could you copy his successful format and 'out-Rogan' Rogan? I just doubt that.

So let me explain what makes Rogan different:

1.  There are no commercial breaks, and these interviews go on....sometimes to three full hours.  CNN can't produce that format.

2. From regular guests, to far extreme guests....there's this massive spectrum existing.  He could bring on some gal to talk about x-diet for two entire hours.  He could bring on a UFO expert to talk for three hours.  CNN can't produce that type of format.

3.  As much as Rogan is a comedian....he's also a common sense guy.  College?  He spent roughly one year in college, and then noted that the experience was "worthless", then left.  

4.  Does Rogan inject extreme left or right values into the questions?  I would argue that he takes up the prospective of the average guy on the street, or someone you'd bump into at a farmer's market, or a retired guy from south Florida.  

5.  Are there Rogan interviews that are of zero value?  I would say from the past 18 months that I've listened to them....around one-third of them have no interest to me (I really don't care about professional boxing, dark matter, or enchanted witchcraft chatter).

Is CNN worried?  Well....here's the thing.  On an average evening.....at least in the past three months....CNN's audience is crap (full up microscopic size CRAP).  Rogan?  On a five-star guest (Joey Diaz, Ric Flair---the wrestler, Jordan Petersen, etc)....it might go up around 10-million (that's around 20 times the audience for a prime-hour of CNN).  

I suspect those numbers freak out the CNN folks.  

Would CNN interview Joey Diaz?  NEVER, in a thousand years.  

Would CNN interview Jordan Petersen and just let him talk.....not trying to blast or antagonize Petersen?   NEVER, in a thousand years.  

I sat there around two weeks ago, and went back to a Dick Cavett interview from the 1970s.  Cavett just plain interviewed people, and he is probably the closest thing to Rogan that has existed in fifty years.  

My question to CNN.....are you going to end up having a anti-Rogan hour each week.....like you had the five hours per day in 2017/2018/2019/2020 for the anti-Trump hour?  Let me remind you....all that wasted chatter helped to shape the audience that you have presently (if you were wondering about where the people left).  

Ten Odd Things I've Come To Notice (Think About) In The Last Month

 1.  I've taken to watching YouTube clips of Dick Cavett/Johnny Carson and come to realize that they are far more capable and talented....than 99-percent of the late night show hosts of the modern era.

2.  I've come to realize I intensely watch President Biden 'talks' now....kinda like a demolition-derby situation.....waiting for an 'accident' to occur.

3.  I've just about turned CNN entirely off.  It'd require a airline disaster, tsunami in Hawaii, or some wild moment where Nancy Pelosi spouting off Latin phrases....for me to flip the CNN show back on.

4.  I've just about reached the point where I consider NPR to be mostly a 'gang' of activists who hang out and get paid by the government to be activists.

5.  I've reached some belief that I think aliens mostly hang around the Earth for entertainment purposes, and send video back home to Yang-8 for some reality TV show.

6.  I've reached some point where I really don't care what Brittney Spears does.  If she wants to tour America in some 1957 Chevy with nothing on....just let her do it.

7.  I've come to ask the question routinely now.....why are liberals so dejected and wretched all the time?  They all seem to be like 8-year old kids who've marched into a chocolate shop to find the shelves empty.

8.  I've to wonder....if a 5th-grade kid can now reasonably argue/debate against a college graduate....are we (society) in serious trouble?

9.  I've come to realize....my interest in this winter Olympics is just about zero.  In fact, given a choice of watching the entire season of Cheyenne (ABC's cowboy western series from the late 1950s)....or the Olympics....I'd probably watch the western.

10.  I've come to fantasize this dream interview of Joe Rogan, and North Korea's Mr. Kim.  Both would smoke weed, and it'd turn into a 5-hour interview.   

Are We At A Point Where Narrators Are More Important Than Journalists?

 I have this category of people that I refer to as public narrators (Joe Rogan, Lex Fridman, Mathew Sibson, Tim Pool, Brent Pella, JP Sears, etc).  So they don't gather news, invent news, or find news.  They, more or less, talk about the topics of things which 90-percent of the time.....the CNN idiots, the Fox trolls, or the political hacks just simply refuse to discuss.

Last year, I sat for two hours and heard a great discussion over the Aztec Indian empire.  I also have heard at least thirty JP Sears sarcastic commentaries over Covid and the US government.  I probably spent a full hour hearing a discussion from a young woman who lived for two or three years with a boyfriend who was max on the paranoid schizophrenic problems.

What makes these people special?  People like Fridman and Rogan ask a lot of stupid questions, and guests explain things in more detail than what you'd ever get via the BBC or CNN.  

Are Fridman or Sears controlled by sponsors?  NO.  

Does Joe Rogan care if it's 50,000 people listening or 5-million people?  NO.

Are they becoming more significant than news organizations?  I would offer these four observations:

1.  Newspaper and magazines were always developed to give you a limited bit of knowledge and information on a topic.  If you asked Pella about his content....he'd just respond that he picked the topic out of thin air, and thought of twenty funny things to discuss.....with no limit.

2.  Who listens to podcasts?  Well....it used to be mostly 18-to-25 year old folks, and in the past decade....there are 12-year-old kids sitting there and listening to Doctor Todd Grande discuss weird people.  There are 75-year olds listening to Scott Adams.  It's across the spectrum.

3.  Do they need Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube?  No.  Most have found other vehicles, and it puts the Silicon Valley crowd in a 'pickle' on controlling people. 

4.  Some 'facts' being displaced and replaced?  Well....yeah, this issue has popped up and the narrators are putting some journalists in a tough position.  Everyday, Tim Pool talks about stuff....that makes someone at the WaPo/NY Times look stupid.  

So we should ask this question....will we reach a point where our nightly hours that was reserved for Gunsmoke, MSNBC political chatter, Clint Eastwood movies, or fake Amish mafia.....are dumped for three hours of just narrators?  I added up the past week, and shocked myself by admitting I put almost twenty hours into narrator chatter.  

When The Day Comes That AOC Runs For President

 It's NOT a 'if' question....it's a when question.

I generally believe that in 2027.....AOC will edge out and show up in Iowa two or three times....to stake a position in the 2028 Presidential election.

Winning any of the first four primary states?  Well....Iowa is a 50-50 shot (depending on competition.  NH and SC might be slightly higher chances.  Nevada might be the only 100-percent shot that she has.

The problem that 20-percent of all statements that she's made up to this point....sound like 'trash' that a 12-year old kid would utter?  That is the most significant problem about her, and these statements will be dragged out in the Presidential campaign.

No real resume?  That will be mentioned over and over, but I think Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama have both proven that the resume doesn't matter much.

Could she win?  If debates get thrown into the mess....she probably would be a one-star player at best.  But the news media is looking for some Jesus-like character to emerge from the woods, and she's probably the best candidate to fit that requirement.  So I would start preparing myself in five years....for something that involves AOC as a Presidential candidate.  

What Was The Haymarket Affair?

 In the 1880s, there was a evolution taking place in America....over rights of workers.  Unions were leading this on, and in major urbanized areas....there was a lot of conflict going on.

So in Chicago, around Haymarket Square....around early May of 1886....a demonstration was scheduled.  Most people were led to the idea that it was all peaceful and just supposed to send a 'message'.

The day prior to this (3 May), police had gotten into some type of scuffle and killed a protest guy....and injuring a couple of other folks.

In the middle of this event on the 4th of May....with police trying to bust-up the protest demonstration....dynamite was thrown around.  You can ask various questions, but no one knows much of anything....other than 7 police were dead and around four protest folks were no longer among the living.  A fair number of folks were wounded from the blast.

What came up in the weeks after this....around eight individuals were arrested and held to be anarchists'.  Some evidence was presented to say that one of the eight probably made the dynamite device.   Evidence that this guy threw the device at the police?  None.  Local Chicago court felt enough evidence was there.....so seven of the eight were convicted and sentenced to be hanged....with the 8th getting a 15-year period in state prison.

Roughly 18 months after the blast.....four of the seven were actually hanged (Nov 1887).  Around six years would pass and the remaining folks were pardoned by the state governor, who deemed the whole process and accomplishments to be 'pretty crapped up' (my expression, not his). 

If you dig through all the history to this.....the dynamite device itself only killed one single policeman, and wounded six others.  

It's what comes immediately after this where a bunch of people (police included)....pulled pistols and just started firing rounds.  A whole bunch of shooting erupts.....with seventy-odd people wounded, and four dead folks on the ground (from the gunshots, not the bomb).

The numbers business being faulty?  There's been various discussions over the years and some people think the wounded number might be two or three times what is generally regarded as 'fact'.  A lot of wounded people just walked away....preferring not to admit being anywhere near the event.

What the Chicago news media did after this?  Well...they blamed the union folks, and the term 'anarchist' started to get uttered at the same level that 'militia-members' gets uttered today.  

The accusation of infiltrators or 'insiders' being uttered?  This is a curious thing.  Pinkerton agents were quickly pointed as possible in the planning process, and maybe the use of the dynamite itself.  

Some or all of the legal proceedings simply 'cooked-up'?  Well....this gets brought up and there's little you can do but read the accepted history and go over the suggested false-history (fake news, more or less).

The court hearing (running from 21 June to 11 August)?  More or less....a circus atmosphere.

The bomb 'thrower' ever brought to justice?  No.  No one could ever get a serious bit of evidence to say who this was.  

The fact that there are a serious number of Germans in the middle of this anarchist accusation?  Well....that is an odd part of the story.  Maybe there were just a lot of radical Germans who immigrated into the US, or maybe they were wild characters to start with.

Enough material for a twenty-hour mini-series?  Oh, without any doubt.  But you'd be dragging up a lot of 1880s history which people of today simple aren't aware of. 

All of this.....of an incident where more people were dead from gunfire, than the actual bomb itself?  Yeah, that is an interesting part of the story.