At donor retreats and in pitch documents seen by The New York Times, liberal strategists are pushing the party’s rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliché now goes, “find the next Joe Rogan.”
Here’s the thing, Rogan could lean left (not centrist, left). Remember this?
Here’s the deal: There will never been a popular, centrist online presence which is stronger than the right-wing populist one. Centrists don’t do popular. They don’t have the instincts. It’s all about pandering to elite and PMC ideology — think Yglesias, Ezra Klein, and their ilk. They can run numbers, sure, but no one gets super worked up. No one who wasn’t going to vote Democratic no matter what loves them.
Rogan is a populist. He was willing to go left, he’s willing to go right. He’s not going to go Centrist. There will never be a centrist Joe Rogan.
This is a symptom of a larger problem.
Six months after the Democratic Party’s crushing 2024 defeat, the party’s megadonors are being inundated with overtures to spend tens of millions of dollars to develop an army of left-leaning online influencers.
If by “left-leaning” they meant left, this would be theoretically possible, but what they mean is centrist:
Democrats widely believe they must grow more creative in stoking online enthusiasm for their candidates, particularly in less outwardly political forms of media-like sports or lifestyle podcasts. Many now take it as gospel that Mr. Trump’s victory last year came in part because he cultivated an ecosystem of supporters on YouTube, TikTok and podcasts, in addition to the many Trump-friendly hosts on Fox News.
It’s been memory-holed, but there was a time when the left was stronger than the right online — vastly stronger. In the 2000’s, the days of the so-called Netroots or blogosphere, it wasn’t even close. The big names were left-wing, and the biggest right-wingers did numbers that were one-tenth of theirs.
This was widely acknowledged. There were mainstream press articles about the right-wing’s online problems.
Then Obama took power, and the word went out: If you’re a Democratic operative or donor, you should stop funding Netroots, and if you don’t, well, you will be frozen out of work as an operative, and if you’re donor, your interests will not be prioritized.
It was there, I was an insider, and I know. The combination of Google and Facebook systematically driving advertising revenues into the dirt, along with some other issues (basically related to Democratic core voters lack of any actual principles other than, “Our party is always right, the Republicans are always wrong, and the left owes us their votes and has nowhere to go”), Netroots died. It took a few years, but the job was done.
The Netroots’ mantra was, “more and better Democrats.” We fundraised for Democrats, but we also primaried Democrats we considered bad. This was unconscionsable to Democratic power brokers. We were supposed to be entirely an adjunct and not interfere in internal Democratic politics at all. So, they put Netroots down like a diseased dog.
Democrats want a cheering section. They don’t want anyone who will do anything but promote the candidates chosen by insiders.
That’s NOT how a popular online movement works. It isn’t how any of the movements which have been successful on the right worked. They all primaried Republicans they didn’t like and pushed policies they believed in — even if the party didn’t agree.
So donors can throw as much money as they like at the problem, but unless they’re willing to fund the actual left, and to understand that funding doesn’t mean they get complete control, they will fail.
It would be better to encourage already existing, left-wing populist figures and give them some funding, as opposed to trying to astroturf a new online movement.
But then, an already-existing figure might say, “Free Palestine” or “Biden is senile,” and they can’t have that.
No one will really trust an astroturfed “left-wing” figure, and they won’t grow to huge stars.
You can have effective, powerful left-wing online populists, or you can have court eunuchs who always back the party line.
Choose one.
Oakchair
to help Democrats “find the next Joe Rogan.”
——————-
Maybe they mean they need to find all the other populists who won’t obey the PMC, and do what they did with Rogan, Kennedy, Gabbard, and Kucinich. Drive them and their supporters out.
Imagine the responses if in 2004 you went around telling people “20 years from now the Democratic party will be the pro-war party. They’ll be shrills for big pharma. They’ll cheer for censorship. Demand the government control your body, and get hysterical when the Republican’s begin removing industrial pollutants from water and food. ”
You’d be laugh at but here we are. Surreal.
bruce wilder
A “working-class” party is only possible for a Party willing to do things for broad swathes of the population, economically substantial things like protect them from billionaire predators. Raising funds from billionaire predators or from the allied class of PMC parasites is obviously incompatible with this objective on a fundamental level.
I cannot argue that money cannot buy lots of propaganda and stir up voters with Democratic loyalties and New Deal nostalgia. Obama worked. “Community organizer” etc. Bernie worked out well for the powers that be, twice. The Party establishment will always make such sure there is a Manchin or Sinema in place to play Lucy and take away the football. A Democratic President has to be a monster or empty shell or, preferably, both a monster and practically brain-dead.
If a Rogan — for argument’s sake, “the real deal” — is he automatically “right-wing” for any reason other than the absence of left-wing politicians and supporting pundits in the political ecosystem?
Purple Library Guy
Harder to do now . . . search, social media platforms, all the algorithms promote the more hateful right for “engagement” (or in Musk’s case because he’s a fascist), and suppress the left because billionaire owners aren’t fond of anyone who wants to take any of their money and power.
Purple Library Guy
Oakchair, what on earth? The Republicans are systematically gutting anything that might possibly stop industrial pollutants from getting in water and food. Far as I can tell, the Democrats haven’t said a lot about it, but mostly just because the zone is so flooded with shit that it’s hard to notice that among all the other DOGE casualties. And certainly again, the people demanding that the government control your body is mostly the Republicans. On censorship, interpreted broadly, it’s more mixed–Democrats are more likely to insist that you not say nasty things about broad categories of people, Republicans are stopping you from accessing books and information they don’t like, which seems like much more real censorship to me.
The Democrats HAVE become the more pro-war party, and they’re certainly shills for big pharma. But at least they aren’t morons who decided they don’t believe in vaccines (thinking of vaccines, I’ve started to think big pharma has basically not resisted the whole anti-vax thing for the same reason they’ve generally gotten out of the “cure” business and into the “treatment” business: A vaccine that basically wipes out a disease doesn’t make them that much money compared to the disease continuing to spread and needing more expensive treatment over and over).
Oakchair
is he (Rogan) automatically “right-wing” for any reason other than the absence of left-wing politicians and supporting pundits in the political ecosystem?
——
I’d guess no, he was a Sanders supporter back in the day.
He’s “right-wing” because the marketing arm of the ruling class believes that slapping the label far right on anyone questioning certain dictates is an effective strategy to contain those questions.
jrs
I don’t believe a rich person is going to go left in any meaningful sense. Yea pigs could fly, and hell could freeze over, and someone as rich as Joe Rogan could become a leftist.
mago
Admittedly anyone I knew who had the big bucks came by their wealth outside the law, just as all the establishment power players did with their inherited wealth, only difference being where it came from and which side of the fence you sit on.
Money monkeys ain’t gonna shake the mango tree just like Joe Rogan will serve his masters and whatever keeps him playing.
They’re all self serving short con artists.
The long term cons keep them playing along.
Ain’t that America . . . ?
miss jennings
Joe Rogan obviously likes power. Being near it. Being a part of it.
Joe Rogan was quite happy being among the elites at Trump’s inauguration.
‘I like Bernie and Tulsi!’ said Joe before Bernie capitulated.
I guess then it was just down to the pull of the cultish RAW-aligned Gabbard whose entire persona is a fraud. Gabbard is and always has been a pure politician. She is not an outsider, and she of course parlayed her desk job in Iraq into her political career, making people believe she is a part of the warrior class. She was never remotely anti-war or anti-imperialist rather she called out a few select US abominations (among all the many) that were politically convenient for her. So she made Kamala Harris look foolish at the convention in a scripted moment. Big deal. And not exactly hard to do. We’re talking about Kamala Harris.
If Rogan were worth anything, he might look into these things a little deeper. But Rogan’s whole schtick is ‘Hey, I’m just a stupid pothead comedian/MMA guy – don’t take my word for anything.’
Joe’s stupid schtick evidently appeals not only to the less intelligent people of the US who are often derided here. It also holds appeal to some of the otherwise intelligent people who post here at Ian’s site!
God help us.
‘Hey, I’m just a stupid pothead comedian/MMA guy – don’t take my word for anything.’
This is the best advice Joe Rogan has ever given you. Heed it.
‘I don’t believe a rich person is going to go left in any meaningful sense. Yea pigs could fly, and hell could freeze over, and someone as rich as Joe Rogan could become a leftist.’
Yep. He’s got a quarter billion dollars. Have fun with good old Joey Rogan folks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdR5xw-UWl0
Feral Finster
Sincerity is key. Once you can fake that, you’ve got it made!
If anyone thinks that anything good can come out of Team D….
Oakchair
Oakchair, what on earth? The Republicans are systematically gutting anything that might possibly stop industrial pollutants
——
The republican governments in Utah, Florida, and various cities/counties this year passed laws removing the most prevalent neurotoxin from public water.
RFK Jr. isn’t a republican, but he was appointed by one and recently began banning the use of a range of cancerous and neurotoxic food additives.
Pollution from oil isn’t the only source of pollution.
——
the people demanding that the government control your body is mostly the Republicans.
—–
The Biden administration forced millions of people to get Covid vaccines. Democratic state governments force up to millions of children to get dozens of vaccines.
The body doesn’t end at the womb.
—–
On censorship, interpreted broadly, it’s more mixed–Democrats are more likely to insist that you not say nasty things
—-
Are you ignoring the entire Biden admisntration or do you not know about the largest instance of mass censorship in American history?
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/Censorship-Industrial-Complex-WH-Report_Appendix.pdf
—–
But at least Democrats aren’t morons who decided they don’t believe in vaccines
—-
Mark Twain said it best in 2021: “If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re misinformed. If you read the science you’re an anti-vaxxer.”
—–
I’ve started to think big pharma has basically not resisted the whole anti-vax thing for the same reason they’ve generally gotten out of the “cure” business and into the “treatment” business: A vaccine that basically wipes out a disease doesn’t make them that much money compared to the disease continuing to spread and needing more expensive treatment over and over
—-
Keep going with that concept, you’re so close. So very close.
These scientific studies will help you along:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7268563/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28188123/
https://www.oatext.com/Pilot-comparative-study-on-the-health-of-vaccinated-and-unvaccinated-6-to-12-year-old-U-S-children.php#gsc.tab=0
miss jennings
‘Have fun with good old Joey Rogan folks’ should be more like ‘Rogan and his ilk’ as Ian’s post and the comments are broader than the initial focal point of Joe Rogan.
bruce wilder
you know how I know the Democrats are worthless? because at the very moment when even an ounce of integrity would be the most powerful political weapon they could wield, they cannot muster any.
I take a mild interest in RFK,Jr and his efforts to something about the health crisis enveloping the U.S. Life expectancy is declining. Obesity is epidemic. COVID-19 left public health credibility in a shambles. I don’t try to arbitrate all the controversies the Democrats insist are enveloping RFK,Jr — I do not have the medical knowledge. But, I have noticed a pattern in the cases where I do have a bit of knowledge: the Democratic critics are propagandizing and Kennedy has a case. I am NOT saying Kennedy is right — my judgment on that would not be worth much. What I am saying is the Dems tend to go for a blanket slander at a high level of generality and with black-and-white narrative control — classic propaganda techniques to destroy credibility and to encourage an audience to make sweeping if superficial judgments.
“Vaccines are safe.” No qualification.
I saw one that I mentioned before that disturbed me: the executive director of a professional association for public health called for RFK,Jr to be fired. One of the charges was promoting doses of vitamin A as a treatment for measles, on the grounds that there is no evidence for Vitamin A is useful in treating measles. The only problem was that Vitamin A is a treatment for measles. Large doses are a standard part of hospital treatment of measles. That is an instance of the absence of integrity that I think has become standard for Democrats and their allies.
The U.S. has some serious public health issues, but I do not think Democrats care about those problems, at least not enough to be selective and scrupulous in their criticisms. We are supposed to “believe in vaccines” to quote PLG like the Immaculate Conception. RFK,Jr has criticized one particular polio vaccine (there have been and are several designs / formulations) but in Democratic propaganda it gets blown up like he has been advocating abandoning polio vaccination altogether.
RFK,Jr has suggested that with fluoride in many toothpastes and even mouthwashes, it might be a good idea to reevaluate blanket policies of adding fluoride to drinking water. He’s been ridiculed for noting that cell phone radiation can cause certain kinds of brain tumors, which seems to be well-supported science by the way. And, it just goes on like that.
I haven’t seen Democrats apologize for Russiagate. Or acknowledge their immigration policy under Biden. Or apologize for gaslighting the country about Biden’s mental acuity. Or explain Obama’s intense persecution of national security whistleblowers.
I am NOT saying Trump is the “real” lesser evil. My view is that small-d democracy is being extinguished because the establishment in both Parties would prefer not to have to do anything for voters at the expense of their big donors. But, as long as politics as practiced is for donors to finance massive, manipulative propaganda campaigns, one thing we ordinary folk can do is to resist the manipulation and to tell the truth when we know some of it, factual or moral.
shagggz
As far as the mainstream goes, there is no left and there will not be a left. The best we can hope for is a housebroken sheepdog apologist for warmongers like Bernie or AOC, and we know where those lead.
As for a left worth its salt, such as the Due Dissidence boys, they’ll be ratfucked into oblivion if they ever get big enough to matter to the mainstream.
Soredemos
@miss jennings
Joe Rogan was the left’s Joe Rogan. Or rather he was genuinely receptive to a whole host of ideas that are either outright left wing, or at least Sanders-style social democratic. Watch his episodes with people like Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, or Dave Rubin and see how he pushes back on right wing concepts.
He also still is left leaning, depending on the issue. Joe Rogan actually is something of a genuine centrist. He’s guided substantially by what he thinks makes some sort of baseline, common sense. No, he isn’t politically erudite. But he’s also not an unmitigated neanderthal douchebag (and he’s certainly not a Nazi).
What turned him ‘right’ was the constant gaslighting from the media and Liberal mainstreams on a variety of issues, starting for him with the obvious agenda driven lying about allowing men to LARP as women and ruin women’s sports for actual women, particularly in MMA. After that he became a repeated media target and started to focus on obvious media lies, both about himself and other issues. Liberals drove him right, essentially.
I don’t even say any of this as any kind of Joe Rogan fan. I habitually pay him no attention on a daily basis and have never seen a single episode of his podcast in its entirety. But I know enough about him through osmosis, and pay attention to people who do follow and care about him enough to document these types of sagas.
Also, whether Joe Rogan is ever worth listening to or should be as successful as he is is irrelevant: tens of millions of people do listen to him, and he is that successful. Any political cause worth a damn is going to simply have to engage with figures like Rogan. With all do respect, effectively no one is paying attention to whomever you might offer up as actually worthwhile commentary: not the Yves Smiths, the Michael Hudsons, the Ian Welshs, etc etc. None of these blogs, or YouTube interviews that might get a couple thousand views from already committed true believers, matters.
You could also do a lot worse than using someone like Joe Rogan as a vehicle for communicating policy ideas. He’s actually not an idiot, is a substantially fair minded interviewer who gives his guests plenty of uninterrupted space to speak, is genuinely supportive of and receptive towards a whole host of ideas that wouldn’t get play in a neoliberal outlet. And, most importantly. a huge number of people listen to his show. Joe Rogan gives you a bullhorn straight into the brains of millions of the kind of middle-age suburban and rural white man dad that liberals keep losing elections partly because they’ve made it clear how much they hate this demographic, and then act baffled when they don’t vote for Democrats.
Purple Library Guy
Do any of the people whining about trans women in sports have any idea how few trans women are in sports? Gotta be the tiniest crisis ever invented. If you’re so horny to hate trans people that you’ll accept THAT as a basis for it, you’re a massive douchebag.
Oakchair, the Republicans are gutting the FDA and the EPA. Even if some state makes some regulation about some toxin, how is anyone gonna even know if it gets used anyway?
The whole antivax thing is originally based on one study, that turned out to be rather falsified and was withdrawn and the reputation of the guy who wrote it was ruined, long before there was ever a political dimension to questions of vaccines. In general, yes, vaccines are ludicrously safe compared to almost everything else there is–rates of serious negative reactions are down in the one-in-ten-million range, which is lower than nearly any food, and FAR lower than most actual medicines. They are ludicrously safer than any of the medicines that get advertised with the “side effects may include long list of horrific stuff” trailing off at the end. Vaccines get tested, they get studied, and because they’re normally used widely if they’re used at all the data sets are very good. I have friends who are doctors and cancer researchers; their withering scorn for anti-vax types and their supposed data is off the charts. Vaccines kept generations of people safe from quite a few very dangerous infections diseases until some assholes decided to start lying their asses off as part of the politics of conspiracy. So now we’re going to get to start seeing people dying of measles, mumps, polio and so forth. Where were these douchebags when Oxycontin was introduced?
NR
Meanwhile the Republicans are working to make it easier to dump PFAS “forever chemicals” into our water, which unlike fluoride have been conclusively proven to damage people’s health:
https://pfas.pillsburylaw.com/cra-epa-rule-curtailing-pfas-exemptions-new-chemicals/
Republicans are so environmentally friendly and health-conscious, aren’t they Oakchair?
miss jennings
‘Liberals drove him right, essentially.’
No one drove Rogan anywhere. If he allowed others to take him somewhere he doesn’t want to be then he is weak weak tea – not a fighter. And of course this is the case. He will fight for a few things he cares about within the mainstream like the neanderthral MMA crap.
‘Watch his episodes with people like Matt Walsh, Candace Owens, or Dave Rubin and see how he pushes back on right wing concepts.’
To what end? That’s in fact where it ends. It’s just talk, no action. And it’s not talk that could even lead to any action because Rogan doesn’t go there. He isn’t interested in anything more.
As you say, he only cares about a few select things that have personally affected the things he cares about. I think that transgender athletes should compete in their own league. But I don’t feel any kinship with Rogan because of that.
‘tens of millions of people do listen to him, and he is that successful. Any political cause worth a damn is going to simply have to engage with figures like Rogan.’
Then he needs to do much much better.
‘With all do respect, effectively no one is paying attention to whomever you might offer up as actually worthwhile commentary: not the Yves Smiths, the Michael Hudsons, the Ian Welshs, etc etc. None of these blogs, or YouTube interviews that might get a couple thousand views from already committed true believers, matters.’
I haven’t offered anyone up. Those are your words. But, I certainly wouldn’t be adverse to Rogan talking with them or about their ideas because he reaches so many, as you say.
But will he? That is the question, and the point I’m trying to make.
‘Joe Rogan actually is something of a genuine centrist.’
Perfect. We need more of them. They get so much done.
Richard Holsworth
Attendees of the 2011 Netroots Nation conference packed a session called, “What to Do When the President is Just Not That Into You.”
“So they put the Netroots down like a diseased dog.“
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2011/06/16/netroots-obama-disenchantment
miss jennings
‘I certainly wouldn’t be adverse to’
averse to
Again: Will Joe go where others won’t?
Prolly not. He is, after all, a genuine centrist. Probably also why he’s such an utter bore. But I’ll take utter bores if they’ll fight for us. I see no evidence that Joe Rogan will do that to a degree worth anything that would affect serious change to a system that has made him ridiculously rich and famous.
I’ll end with this point: There is this guy named Michael Moore we all know about. Roger and Me, Bowling Alone, Planet of the Humans. Etc. And I bring Moore up not because I particularly like the guy or think he’s going to lead us to the promised land, rather I bring him up because I always think back to his interview with I think it was Hannity or some Fox guy. And Moore had no problem openly stating that he and all rich people should be taxed more. He actually said: Take some of my money and redistribute it. I have too much. And he didn’t say this in a Bill Gates BS way, he really means it.
I’ve never heard Joe Rogan say that. And Joe has much, much more ‘wealth’ than Moore.
So let’s begin there. These people such as Rogan can’t hide behind ‘pushing back on a few right wing ideas’ that are usually so batshit crazy any sane person wouldn’t give them any credence to begin with. He needs to start talking about how HE HIMSELF, JOE ROGAN, HAS WAY WAY TOO MUCH because of this sick system. Explore how he got there.
I won’t hold my breath waiting for that, though it would be great to see.
To return to your words, Soredemos:
‘You could also do a lot worse than using someone like Joe Rogan as a vehicle for communicating policy ideas.’
Again: Will the policy ideas that really need to be explored ever see the light of day within Joe Rogan’s milieu?
They haven’t so far.
marku52
Typical Dem Crap
“Make our problem go away, Dont’ change anything…..”
Feral Finster
@bruce wilder
“I am NOT saying Trump is the “real” lesser evil. My view is that small-d democracy is being extinguished because the establishment in both Parties would prefer not to have to do anything for voters at the expense of their big donors. ”
What we are seeing is a series of tit-for-tat, the overturning of norms and the feigned shock and horror on the other side, much like the last days of the Roman Republic.
Each side justifies their actions by claiming that this is an emergency, and besides, we’re just responding to the other guys….
Anyway, the only question is which oligarch faction will triumph over the other. Team D, which is the political manifestation of the class consciousness of the PMC, or Team R, which plays a similar role with respect to Local Gentry.
Roy Batty
“Democratic core voters lack of any actual principles other than “our party is always right and the Republicans are always wrong and the left owes us their votes and has nowhere to go”
I ran into one of these the other day on Bluesky. I had commented that nobody owed their vote to Harris and a battle began. I was trying to explain that Corporate Dems were never going to be able to effectively oppose Trump and that nothing was ever going to improve under neoliberalism but this person basically kept ignoring the points I was trying to make in favor of nitpicking in all caps. I earnestly tried to converse with this person and they just wanted to shout me down. I at least had a chuckle when they were enraged that I said Harris and Clinton were bad candidates, and I responded “If you don’t think getting dunked on repeatedly by a braindead criminal and his fascist goons means they were bad candidates then I guess I don’t know what to tell you”. He had no response for that one and attacked Sanders.
Judging by this person’s constant use of memes and hashtags on theier posts I want to think this was a young teenager. It’s too depressing to consider an adult would hold such dumb opinions and communicate them so sophomorically.
Oakchair
Oakchair, the Republicans are gutting the FDA
——
“The executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”
Regarding the FDA see the opioid crisis, Vioxx, every single psychiatric drug, vaccines, the new dementia drugs for examples of the FDA sacrificing everyone’s health so corporations can get richer.
Don’t worry though, big pharma will do just fine when their marketing department gets downsized.
—–
Even if some state makes some regulation about some toxin, how is anyone gonna even know if it gets used anyway?
—–
Do you know anything about the neurotoxin Florida, Utah and various cities and counties have recently banned? Hint: it’s put into the water by water utilities on purpose.
—-
The whole antivax thing is originally based on one study,
—
My last post literally provided 3 studies. I could post another 100+ as you well know because you’ve been reading the open threads.
You’re posts are an example of what bruce wilder is talking about when he says:
“I have noticed a pattern in the cases where I do have a bit of knowledge: the Democratic critics are propagandizing and Kennedy has a case”
“(they) tend to go for a blanket slander at a high level of generality and with black-and-white narrative control — classic propaganda techniques”
I’m not interested in going through the rest of your post because you’re not interested in a good faith discussion.
different clue
@Roy Batty,
Memes and hashtags are old enough now that post-teenagers and well-past-post teenagers are familiar with them. I wouldn’t be surprised if young-ish and ex-young adults use them. If only we could find out the actual age of the bluesky person you interacted with. That he/she ” He had no response for that one and attacked Sanders.” makes me think you were dealing with a Clintonite at least 50 years old and likely older.
Several terms ago I discovered that the Democratic party persons manning the little DemParty booths I would visit at Art Fairs and stuff like that ( in the little Politics section) had become boring and repetitive and aggressive in their hasbara for Clintonites and Obamazoids and stuff like that. Whereas the Republican party persons at their little booths were interesting and fun to interact with for a couple of minutes at a time.
I don’t know which would be harder: for semileftists and populeftists to try launching a several-decade effort to conquer the DemParty and then purge the millions of ClintoBidenites, Obamazoids, etc. out of it . . . or to spend several decades trying to grow a semi-lefto/ populeftist movement-party of their own. People who believe one or another can be done and should be tried can go right ahead and try.
People who believe something else more different can be done and should be tried can go ahead and try that.
Oakchair
https://www.fda.gov/media/107657/download
This is clinical trial used to approve Prevnar 13.
The clinical trial compared Prevnar 13 to the older Prevnar vaccine.
“Serious adverse events reported following
vaccination in infants and toddlers occurred in 8.2% among Prevnar 13 recipients and 7.2% among Prevnar recipients” (Page 6).
A serious adverse event would be “newly diagnosed chronic medical conditions, and hospitalizations”
In the clinical trial for the older Prevnar vaccine it was tested against “an investigational meningococcal vaccine” which has never been approved for use.
That is the level of “science” used to justify injecting every child 70+ times.
https://icandecide.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/no-placebo-101823.pdf
“If I were to remain silent, I’d be guilty of complicity.” ― Albert Einstein
“The problem really is not that we do not know the truth, but that we do not want to know it.” —Nils Melzer
“One is never afraid of the unknown; one is afraid of the known coming to an end.” ― Jiddu Krishnamurti
miss jennings
‘Take some of my money and redistribute it.’
I should clarify here that the conversation should really be around building, or rebuilding, structures that don’t allow such wealth concentration in the first place. As opposed to simply allowing them to grow insanely wealthy and then attempting to pull some of it back and redistribute it.
Does anyone think Joe Rogan will entertain such a conversation?
I don’t mean having sheepdog Bernie Sanders on and saying you agree with his generalist ideas that themsevles have scant specifics behind them. Particularly when it comes to actually getting things done. The obstacles and what needs to be done.
The conversations never reach that level because if you go down that road too far Rogan will be soon enough be calling out himself and his brethren and that is a very very difficult thing to do. It takes an extraordinary type of personality to be able to call themselves out. Joe Rogan does not have that in him.
—–
It looks like this past April Jayapal, Bernie et al finally put together something that they seem to agree on. Remember, there were four or five independent ‘Medicare For All’ plans until quite recently, all because these pols have to have their names on everything and it has to be theirs alone.
The Conyers plan was evidently always the best one but they all put out differing versions of their own plans! Jayapal wouldn’t even run on her own plan for a time. She put it out there and then didn’t mention it for a while. Now it’s safe of course because the evils are in power.
https://jayapal.house.gov/2025/04/29/jayapal-sanders-dingell-hundreds-of-health-care-workers-introduce-medicare-for-all/
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/676
——-
Almost everyone has come around to the truth that Sanders is a sheepdog.
If Sanders is a sheepdog, why is the fact that Joe Rogan likes/liked Sanders such a big deal? It should in fact – by now at least – be a huge red flag to those in the know.
Joan
Kyle Kulinski (Secular Talk) and Hasan Piker are lefties with over a million subs on Youtube, but they wouldn’t take money from the DNC and they definitely are covering what’s actually happening to the Palestinians. Kyle was registered as independent until he had to switch to Dem in order vote for Bernie, same thing I did. They criticize Obama, Hillary, mainstream DNC flacks taking big donor money etc. The DNC wouldn’t be able to stomach them I think.
NR
You’re the one who said that the Republicans were removing industrial pollutants from water and food when they’re literally doing the exact opposite, so you’re clearly not interested in good faith discussion either.
Seattle Resident
Ian
If you’re looking for the left Joe Rogan, or something approximating that.
Tony Michaels Podcast on YouTube: Regular Joe, regular guy middle America spoken, but very left loud support for the meat and potato issues that impact Main Street Americans and very loud criticism of Trump, Republicans and the oligarchs, something which Joe Rogan doesn’t do.
If Rogan has gone left, e.g., Bernie support, it’s only been for a split second before going back to shilling for Trump and the right wing, with the occasional ever so minor criticism. Cause shilling for the righties is where the $$$$$$$$$ at.
I think the dem donor class is looking for a controlled opposition “left” podcaster who won’t advocate for serious benefits for Main Street Americans or a strong safety net, sort of a Ezra Klein NYT podcast, but without the big words.
miss jennings
Here is an article on Hasan Piker’s purchase of a 3 million dollar home in LA where the median home price is a little under a million dollars:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hasan-piker-twitch-criticism-home-b1906619.html
We want to avoid straight ‘guilt by association’ but Piker’s uncle is Cenk Uygur who is absolutely a left fraud as outed by none other than Jim Dore – himself a left fraud!
It’s comical at this point.
All of these personalities are various degress of off-putting, to state it mildly. They are unable to step out of their egos for long enough to fight the good fight. They are simply incapable of standing on principle. They are entrenched in the system. They are not operating from at least somewhat – to very much – outside of the system the way the rebel groups were in the sixties and seventies.
But as I stated once before, that may well be because the left groups from that period were being funded to various degrees by outside powers who are themselves now an integral part of the world capital commidity marketplace system.
That’s probably why there are no more Fred Hamptons.
Sabrina Salvati is the best you’re going to get.
Good luck.
[Try to imagine a Hasan Piker type working on the ground with inner city and rural groups the way Hampton did. You begin to laugh uproariously even considering it]
shagggz
miss jennings, if even Dore is a left fraud to you, you may want to consider whether your high bar for purity puts you in the “circular firing squad” camp.
miss jennings
‘Try to imagine a Hasan Piker type working on the ground with inner city and rural groups the way Hampton did. You begin to laugh uproariously even considering it’
A good retort this would be ‘Hey, Hampton was a community organizer, not a media guy. Piker has never indicated that he was going to be a Fred Hampton type. But he has his place and is helpful to the cause.’
This then brings up a whole host of issues particularly pertaining to there being way too many media personalities these days.
I remember Taibbi saying that he gets more mail from people saying they just want a Cronkite type. One can only attend to so many peoples’ varying opinions on the issues.
We know what the problem is and we know what needs to be done why do we need so many people talking from behind a camera/mic? This is not action, even if the modern media itseslf is more ‘active’ than passive.
But it leads to action!
Does it?
I suppose it did for Bernie. To no good end, but that doesn’t mean it can’t again going forward.
For his part, Piker (or anyone else in his sort of position) would have done well to look at the home prices and at least buy something in line with what the average joe can afford. Actually, the average joe can’t even afford the just-under-a-million-dollar home. So there is a further divide.
This is somewhat akin to the ‘appearance of impropriety’ in law. Reasonable minds – reasonble average joes – can’t take a Piker seriously because his independence is materially impaired.
Or how about ‘You have to have the blues to sing the blues.’
Just ask Greg Allman. Or any of the old African American blues singers.
I should say here that I don’t actually believe that everyone has to be poor or in need in order to effectively fight for we poors. I’m not that obtuse. But I do think the ‘appearance of impropriety’ thing is very important here, which is why I bring it up. At least humor people for goodness sake.
And the fact that the Piker home caused immediate controversy proves the point rather clearly.
There is a lot of work to do in this regard.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1-XeuEGpTc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5Ll51kcbjo
Oakchair
NR I’m still waiting for you to post a single randomized study. Though to be fair there aren’t any so lets expand the criteria.
Post any study whatsoever showing any vaccine used today in America improves health outcomes.
And remember I can get past most paywalls, I can read the scientific literature, I can do statistics. If the study posted from a 30 second google search is complete GIGO the likelihood is high it won’t pass my notice.
Good luck.
miss jennings
@shaggz
I’m working on it.
Jimmy makes no bones about his simply wanting to get back to Hollywood parties. He has his own massive purity issues.
I take it you’re still a listener? Did you catch him live in AC? I was outside hanging with the homeless that night. Never saw Dore anywhere outside the Claridge. He went from plane to limo to stage to limo to plane.
Heard Dore say something like ‘Just get these people on drugs help so I can walk into a public place without being accosted.’
Now, he didn’t say ‘Lock them up!’ or something similar but he just wants ‘help’ for them so the world will be cleaner for HIM.
Jimmy Dore is a tightly wound control freak. He has many fraudulent aspects to his schtick. His entire taking up pot-smoking was largely a ruse. Dore types aren’t really pot smokers because they don’t like that type of high. Alcohol is more their thing. But Jimmy was advised that this would be good to further appeal to his audience, so he started vaping – which is hardly smoking pot. Then he quits the same day Snoop Dog does!
He belongs in Hollywood. Loves the life.
Jimmy Dore was fun for me for a time during covid. And I did learn some things from some of the shows. But then it gets to a point where there is nothing there. Jimmy Dore is just a waste of time now.
The worst part? He’s no longer even funny. And he’s always been horrible at ‘winging it.’ They have to have pre-prepared jokes all the time. He’s actually not very ‘on the spot’ witty at all.
NR
Oakchair, I’m still waiting for you to address the topic of Republicans making it easier for industrial polluters to contaminate our water with PFAS instead of trying to change the subject.
miss jennings
The covid shot/MRNA/vaccine/anti-vaxxer thing is a total mess = great for TPTB.
I did not get the covid shots. I believe the covid shots caused a lot of pain and misery for a lot of people. All of the menstrual and heart and other issues are very real for many people. I believe the white fibrous clots are real for some and are unique to this shot.
The problem is that many people got multiple covid shots and have had absolutely no issues. Needless to say, it is obviously very hard to convince them of any problems. And they think the other side is nuts.
So what’s going on?
If the MRNA covid shots are generally bad, why haven’t they affected everyone in a similar way?
Aside from the obvious fact of incredible variation in individual human ability to deal with bad things getting into the system, the issue that hasn’t gotten nearly enough attention is the issue of different batches. The former Pfizer vice president and a few others have dealt briefly with this but I believe it needs much more attention.
shagggz
miss jennings, yes I’m still a listener and no I have not seen him live. I’m glad you’re working on it, because it does seem to need work in your case. Even if I accept as true your claims regarding his fraudulence, I find them superficial and trivial in light of his continuing to denounce Zionist imperialism, the duopoly prison and even the sheepdog Bernie. I’m pretty thoroughly alienated from mainstream politics due to my own purity issues, so for you to hear that criticism from me is pretty telling.
miss jennings
Thanks for the unsolicited advice, shaggz! Anything else I should know about myself?
‘continuing to denounce Zionist imperialism, the duopoly prison and even the sheepdog Bernie’
WOW!!!!!!
Ian Welsh
Bringing this back and forth to an end. Feel free to comment, but not @ each other.
miss jennings
I have at once been engaging in “circular firing squad” antics which are divisive while also making what I believe to be valid arguments.
The ‘left’ is an absolute mess. Reminds me of all the old bandmates who now don’t get along at all.
I may actually buy some Jimmy Dore merch…if I can get my hands on some of Judge Napolitano’s gold.
Thank you Ian.
Mark Level
Just a couple of comments a day late from me–
There are Left “Joe Rogans” available, regularly–
An entire discussion of Left podcast media on a site with many insightful commenters, & no mentions of: the Grayzone, Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate, Anya Paranpil et al? Nor Ali Abunimah and the regulars on the Electronic Intifada? Katie Halper? Break Through News and Rania Khalek? Wikipedia assures me she is a “Lebanese-American Journalist and PROPAGANDIST”– scary! She pissed off somebody in the Establishment. Those mindless talking heads on NPR who regularly spew about “Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine” will never get such an epithet directed at them. Funny story about Abunimah, before his fame when Obama was playing a “Community Organizer” he went to Abunimah and sucked up to him for an endorsement. I guess it didn’t happen though.
I want to thank shaggz for a couple of insightful comments, also bruce wilder, same as I pretty much always do in his case. I’ll honor our host’s request and not weigh in on specific names otherwise.
I will say generally (& generically) I trust the people who mistrust the Big Pharma profiteers far more than those who carry water for them. Who remembers Thalidomide? Around 1983 I had a hotel job and there was a child who stayed for some time who was a victim. And the Tuskeegee Experiment was allowed to go on for 40 years until being shut down in 1972, lest we forget.
Jimmy Dore is mostly okay in my book, his politics are pretty openly worn on his sleeve, he is for the most part politically aligned with Michael Moore, e.g., I consider him Left, and is always clear about not punching down. At times he has terrible takes (Kyle Rittenhouse, e.g.), I watch him not as much as many others and it’s for information, not for his comedy per se. Though when he and Kurt Metzger share the floor it’s usually entertaining. A criticism I’ve had in the recent past is that he does seem to want the eyes of the MAGAts to stay with his program. This is understandable, centering Rogan makes the point that this is a commercial venture for most of these people. (Full-on Activists like Blumenthal I think are more concerned with the message than with money, but I don’t think he’s a Martyr who wants to starve either. The biggest credit I will give to Dore is twofold– He was on a fake Left site, TYT, with the insufferable megalomaniac Cenk Uygur and he had the integrity to call out their bullshit and get pushed out. Secondly he has foregrounded a lot of talents: Blumenthal and Mate, the Due Dissidence Duo, Norm Finkelstein is a regular, he had the Duran on within hours of the Zelensky squabble with Trump and Vance in the Oval Office, clipped into 3 separate informative segments!! This shows that he has competent staff that does research.
Michael Hudson is over 80 and still kicking, telling the truth about Economics, Richard Wolff is also very good. Richard Medhurst, child of 2 diplomats, has been harassed and threatened with jail both in the UK and in Europe, so he must be doing something right. He’s largely disappeared now, not allowed to be monetized on YouTube. They did the same to Jackson Hinckle, who started out far-right MAGA but became good on US Imperialism and the genocide in Gaza. He’s pretty much totally shut down too despite having a huge audience at one time, so we see what happens to those who are too effective. (Please don’t mistake my words, I’m not saying I monetarily supported Hinkle like some others; he was always too all-over-the-place for me.) Ali Abunimah was arrested and jailed for 2 days in “neutral” Switzerland!! This is an easy metric for those who are doing good work, are seen as a threat to TPTB, for the most part.
Someone chose to dunk on Judge Nap. 5 years or so ago, I would’ve had nothing but contempt for the man, a Fox News actual propagandist and right-winger. But many people who I once disdained as right wing showed over time they have a conscience and a moral compass, and he is an example. He has on Blumenthal, Mate, Paryanpil, John Mearsheimer, retired spy lefties like Ray McGovern, Larry C. Johnson, etc. He was ejected from a plane by the NatSec state last year when he tried to go to an event in Russia, so evidently someone considers him an effective voice against Endless War. Oh, he has cheesy promotions on about buying Gold, let me clutch my pearls!! Well, not really, I just fast fwd thru crap like that. It’s a commercial business, and if we look back a little at the history of attempted Lefty projects like “Air America” the choice is people who have the commercial chops to keep their site up, and those who don’t, so I will forgive him for playing the game professionally.
5 years or more ago, I listened to and supported Kyle Kulinski. Not recently– the guy who said that Joe Biden’s White House was “a million billion times better” than the Republican party? No thanks, that’s just moronic. He got himself a gig as the trophy husband of the slightly older but still very attractive millionaire Krystal Ball, he has a good life even though he dyed his hair a ridiculous blonde to impersonate a Himbo. They were both in the bag promoting for the Dem Pres. ticket the former Woowoo fake mystic and ardent Zionist (“Israel does not occupy the Palestinian territories, Brihanna [Joy Grey}, you ignorant slut!)* Then when she predictably crashed and burned, just like Cenk, they went right back to the Dimmiecrats and argued, without a speck of evidence, that “Kamala would be better than Joe on the Genocide.” As somebody observed upward in the thread, not too easy to be genuinely left when you are at millionaire + status– $14 million is what I have heard for Krystal.
Oh, I should mention Pepe Escobar, reporting since 1978, mostly lives in Asia, extremely well-traveled, well-informed, entirely independent, a pro-BRICS spokesperson. Also, he doesn’t have a lot of flash, but the Canadian-Greek lawyer Dmitiri Lascaris’ “Reason to Resist” is among the best new anti-Imperialist and Left podcasts. I believe Pepe and Dmitri were both reporting on the ground from Lebanon when the Israelis were stealing land, even got guns pointed at them by the IDF who chose not to shoot because I guess they knew they weren’t Lebanese Shia and therefore Untermenschen to “the International Community.”
Lastly Nima Alkorshid, the Iranian Engineering professor living in Brazil’s “Dialogue Works” is routinely excellent despite infrequent tech problems. He has on people like the Australian former Carter Admin official John Helmer, who has lived in Russia for decades and understands that beat, shared at “Dances with Bears.” Additionally, Mark Sleboda is Russian-American, has similarly lived in Russia for decades and is reliable and well informed.
Retired diplomats like Chad Freeman , Alaistar Crooke and others appear regularly on some of the above sources, and are a reminder that not everyone working in government 40 years or more ago was a mass-murdering sociopath. Good to know, maybe it doesn’t change what we’re stuck with now but at least shows things could’ve been done differently.
samm
Oakchair: “imagine the responses if in 2004 you went around telling people “20 years from now the Democratic party will be the pro-war party. ”
Democrats were the pro-war party in 2004, no less than the Republicans. It wasn’t years later when the public had definitively soured on the war that they decided Iraq was the “wrong war.”
samm
Mark Level: “There are Left ‘Joe Rogans’ available, regularly.”
‘Left’ anything, the Democrats aren’t interested. What they want is somebody like Ezra Klein, only broadly popular. In other words, a person that not only does not exist, but cannot exist.
Mark Level
samm– of course I agree with you 100%, I left the Dimmie party after 4 decades many years ago (stopped voting for the Pres. ticket after getting suckered by Obama in ’08) & haven’t looked back. I thought that point was already made by others so didn’t repeat it. People that I would vote for are wholly excluded from the political system. I sometimes strategically vote against the worst monsters, that’s about as far as it’s worth even bothering.
I noticed an omission in my comment– The “Woowoo fake Mystic” who Kyle & Krystal supported originally for President was Marianne Williamson (they also flirted with endorsing the now irrelevant Cornell West), omitted her name.
Also the”Brihanna you ignorant slut” screeching that Mystic Marianne directed at Brihanna Joy Gray when Palestine came up was modeled on a Dan Akroyd & Jane Curtin debate Right/Left skit that was featured in the first 5 years of SNL when it had some bite. I forget the name of the bald, angry old man who always abused a younger woman that the skit was parodying, but they captured the spirit.
different clue
. . . ” I forget the name of the bald, angry old man who always abused a younger woman that the skit was parodying, but they captured the spirit. ” . . .
It was James J. Kilpatrick. Here’s a bunch of images.
https://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images;_ylt=AwrjZTgOJjZozKcXmT5XNyoA;_ylu=Y29sbwNncTEEcG9zAzEEdnRpZAMEc2VjA3Nj?p=james+j+kilpatrick+image&fr=sfp
tenacitus
What the left and democratic party had was unions. They got the word out to members. But less workers are unionized. So its’ harder to get voters. Its harder to get good elected officials and candidates who are in tune with what democrats and leftists want.