“History Will Judge the Complicit – Why have Republican leaders abandoned their principles in support of an immoral and dangerous president?”

This was the most e-mailed article in my inbox this week.

It should have been in “The New Yorker.”

In case you missed it, the “New Yorker” and the “New York Times” got into a pissing match over Ronan Farrow’s #MeToo reporting, to the point where even Matt Lauer came out of his bunker with a new tattoo to set the record straight. The “New Yorker” fought back. But Mr. Lauer’s statement was compelling. He did not deny all of his behavior, but went into depth re certain accusations. But Lauer’s been taken off the table, kicked out of the casino, he’s just a news reader and he’s been replaced by the analyst Farrow. But now Farrow’s credibility is in question.

And then the “New York Times” took a hit.

Wednesday all hell broke loose, assuming you’re on Twitter. You see the “Times” posted an opinion piece by Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton entitled “Send In The Troops,” and the staff broke the paper’s rule and commented on its publication. But even more interesting were the outsiders with their analysis. To what degree was the publication of the opinion piece done to drive up subscriptions? You see news is a business. And the analysis said if the “Times” can appeal to more moderates, its numbers will go up. That’s why you’re on Twitter, for the analysis, for the insight you don’t get from the constant assault of 30,000 feet news headlines all day long on TV and the web.

So, the “Times” did a mea culpa. Said the opinion piece did not meet its standards. Even worse, James Bennett, the editor in charge of the opinion section, said he didn’t even read it. This is the plausible deniability Sarah Kendzior keeps going on about. It’s like “Casablanca,” you’re positively shocked and you evade penalty. But Twitter also told us that Bennett was in line to become the next executive editor of the paper, now his ascension is in question, as it should be.

You see journalism is a game. Forget the talking heads, that’s showbiz. Journalists are all about paying their dues and moving up the ladder. There’s gossip and politics and infighting and what looks to you like a seamless product is not.

But it’s so interesting that the Times employees broke the rule on commenting. It’s kinda like the Facebook employees standing up to Zuckerberg. We’re at that point, do you do what you know is right or are you complicit, to save your job, to continue to be a part of the enterprise.

Now despite the dearly departed Tom Wolfe excoriating the “New Yorker,” it is held in the highest regard in journalistic circles. No higher regard than in the cabal comprised of the magazine’s employees. And David Remnick improved the magazine, but it’s rarely the heartbeat of America. The “Talk of the Town” is always slyly placed publicity. As for the feature articles…they’re in-depth, but do they make a difference?

Anne Applebaum’s article in the “Atlantic” makes a difference.

People make a difference.

Once upon a time, there was this magazine editor Clay Felker. He was the best in the business. He was responsible for “New York.” He redid “Esquire.” He created his own magazine, “Manhattan, inc.” that was a cover to cover read.

Just like Marty Baron has lifted the “Washington Post” from second-rate to top tier.

But Marty did it with the help of Jeff Bezos.

And the “Atlantic” is doing it with the help of Laurene Powell Jobs.

Give both Bezos and Jobs credit, they’re putting their money where their mouth is. They’re laying it on the line in pursuit of a better world. And you can criticize Amazon all you want, but only the president believes Jeff is hands-on with the “Post.” Murdoch’s fingerprints are all over Fox News and the “Wall Street Journal,” but it’s the right that shoots as the left defends. And the “Times” has taken a hit, but it’s not the only game in town.

So, I recommend reading the above article, but you must budget almost an hour. And most people won’t dedicate that amount of time.

But in this case, there’s a shortcut. You can listen to the NPR podcast. Pull up the NPR app on your favorite podcast platform, or you can listen on the NPR site. And, if podcasts are not your thing, you can read the transcript of the NPR interview. The podcast and transcript are here:

“Journalist Explains Why Republican Leaders Back Trump’s ‘Proto Authoritarian Cult'”

Now there’s a dividing line in the public. Either you’re open to new ideas, you check different sources, or you don’t. If you’re someone who remains in their silo, who believes all politics are tribal, that it’s a team sport, you might not be open to Anne Applebaum’s analysis.

Anne Applebaum is educated. And intelligent. And these are denigrated in today’s society. If you got an elite education, you’re not entitled to an opinion. Because chances are you’re rich and lording it over us.

Unfortunately, in many cases that’s true. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

And if you have an elite education, unfortunately you are separate from the hoi polloi. Because you’ve been taught how to analyze.

This is what most Americans can’t do. All they can do is gather the facts. But what do they mean? How do you merge all these facts, how do account for conflicting opinions? The dumbing down of America has consequences. And since public schools are underfunded and teach to the test, it’s getting even worse.

So, Anne Applebaum uses Nazi analogies, but she says multiple times, the U.S. is not equivalent to Nazi Germany. But the point remains, why did everybody go along with Nazi policy, why were they complicit?

That’s what Ms. Applebaum is analyzing here.

Her main analogy is Vichy France.

I recommend once again that you watch the series “A French Village.” When it’s all said and done, the Nazi collaborators…they were in trouble, they paid the price. Will today’s Republicans pay the price for supporting Trump?

History will not be kind to them. But what Applebaum is dissecting is the slippery slope, the stories you tell yourself as you enable authoritarianism.

The article goes into the strange case of Lindsey Graham, how he sacrifices everything he believes in to support Trump. How he basks in the aura of the president after meeting with him.

There are many reasons people are complicit with authoritarians, and Applebaum goes into them, which is why you shouldn’t let her story pass you by. She brings up every scenario, every motivation.

Why did the National Park Service doctor photos increasing the attendees at Trump’s inauguration. Everybody knew it was a lie, but it’s best to satiate the new president, give him a break. But Applebaum’s point is it’s not about the number of attendees, it’s that Trump can lie with impunity, with no consequences. Which leads us to…

Impeachment. Everybody in the Senate knew Trump was guilty. Why did they not vote to convict him?

Well, they were playing a team sport. They liked being in office. And if they stood up, they’d be excoriated by Trump and primaried out of office.

Never underestimate personal motivation. It’s rampant in America today. People do what is expedient as opposed to what’s right. For themselves.

To stand up is to be an outcast. To be pilloried.

So people go along, they don’t want to ruffle the feathers of those around them, never mind those in power.

Meanwhile, the person in power gains more and more power, and exercises it. To the point where you’ve got elected officials in Russia and Hungary, but they’re powerless, the authoritarian rules.

And this is what is happening now in America. Threatening to use the military on the people it’s supposed to defend, who are exercising their lawful right to protest, is akin to what they do in dictatorial countries. All in the name of law and order. Yes, the authoritarian says they’re protecting the people as they take away their rights. And the truth is the authoritarian is protecting his or her self, not the people. Hell, look at Trump’s response to Covid-19. He doesn’t care about the people, he cares about himself!

Go online, argue with the Trumpers, it’s a fool’s errand.

You always have to go to the top. And in this case I’m speaking of D.C. These are the people who are in power, and they keep enabling Trump. As for the Democrats…they keep going on about the rules, say their hands are tied, but when it comes to right and wrong, when democracy hangs in the balance sometimes you’ve got to break the rules, like the reporters at the “Times.” Otherwise, is the organization worth saving?

So start off with the podcast. Applebaum is not histrionic, and she does cover the bases. And listening you’ll think…this could happen here.

Sadly, it already has.

WARNER MUSIC IPO

The crime here goes back to 2004, when Time Warner blew out its record division for $2.6 billion.

Today Warner Music is valued at $15 billion.

Assuming you’d taken that $2.6 billion, invested it an annual rate of return of 10%, after fourteen years, i.e. today, you’d have $11.95 billion.

10% is a pretty good rate of return. Look at all the hedge funds in a negative position, that have gone out of business.

The sale of Warner Music back in 2004 was an ignorant one based on emotion.

Let’s look at the company, comprised of Warner/Atlantic/Elektra and many associated labels.

There was the thought that the value of recorded music would go down to zero. And that no one would make music anymore because of the lack of remuneration. Well, one thing’s for sure, today we’ve got too much music, furthermore, income is now going up after being halved, because of streaming. Proving that the music business itself is run by hustlers with no familiarity with tech or trends, and that Time Warner was a boondoggle from day one, after Steve Ross died the enterprise was run off the rails.

Let’s start with the flawed merger with Time (which Ross was in favor of). A conglomerate with a future, based on its cable system, cable channels and music companies, merges with a dead tree enterprise on its way down. Talk about not seeing the future, Time declined to nearly nothing and was then blown out. As for AOL…anybody who actually was online knew AOL was a walled garden and that the future was the worldwide web, with access to all via broadband. Once again, AOL went down in value and was blown out.

And they blew out the record division too. Even though it was the record division that generated all the profits that built the cable system.

You see music scales. If you have a hit, it costs very little to continue to sell that hit. In other words, costs are amortized quickly and then the rest is almost pure profit, especially in the era of digital, without production costs, never mind shipping and returns, and the era of streaming, where music lives forever and pays forever.

None of this was hidden when Warner Music was sold by Time Warner. It’s just that the majordomos had no respect for music, they were building a TV empire that ended up being sold to AT&T, as if a conglomerate is the best place to put content. At least NBC, Universal and Comcast are essentially in the same business, i.e. visual programming. Furthermore, Comcast had the pipes to distribute said content. The synergy with AT&T and Warner is hard to figure out. The wireless business was not built on paid-for visual content. But, AT&T bought DirectTV, which anybody savvy would know was going down, because people would cut the cord, and the satellite service, no matter how good for the distribution of television, lacks a high speed internet component. But AT&T needs growth for Wall Street. Same deal with Verizon, which purchased AOL, supposedly for its ad tech, but that didn’t play out, certainly not for the cost…proving that the history of the past three decades is technologists making marks out of traditional media empires, the truth being they just want to lay off their duds.

So, Warner Music has assets that will never go down to zero. Call it the history of recorded music, Warner has one of the best catalogs extant. People are gonna want to listen to “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and “Stairway To Heaven” and “Little Red Corvette”…until the copyright runs out, which it never seems to, these tracks are gonna rain revenue for decades! It’s even a better investment than real estate! You never have to refurbish the buildings, the tracks are evergreen forever!

But Richard Parsons and Jeffrey Bewkes seemed to be ignorant to this fact. Hell, Parsons came from Amex. As for Bewkes, he was enamored of TV. Proving, once again, even though there’s no qualification to work in the music business, it does require expertise, it is a skill, and decisions should be made by those having said skills, with a clear vision of the future.

This IPO was just about Blavatnik getting his investment back, Warner Music doesn’t need the money.

Then again, HBO, or Netflix, an independent company, needs to do a documentary on Len Blavatnik. Exactly how did he acquire this wealth? And now Blavatnik has laundered his reputation, by donating to cultural institutions, to seemingly every museum in London and $75 million to the University of Oxford for a new school of government.

What happened when Communism fell, when Yeltsin was in power, before the kleptocratic Putin took power? Maybe Blavatnik’s billions are totally legit, but maybe not. But just like with Jeffrey Epstein, when a billionaire gives you money…you take it and shut up.

Then again, the people dancing to Ed Sheeran have no idea about all of this.

Then again, Warner could completely shut down the cost heavy investment in new music and still be worth many billions.

But new music is sexy, which brings us to…

IT’S STILL ROCK ‘N’ ROLL TO ME

https://bit.ly/3cyi11L

Bottom line, most of the money is in rock, not hip-hop.

That’s what the stats say.

But whenever you employ Nielsen stats there’s a question of reality. Like physical and tracks…do they really matter anymore?

But one thing is for sure, hip-hop is nowhere near as dominant as the major players and the major media say it is. This narrative is similar to the one that got Time Warner to blow out its music division sixteen years ago. The sky is falling, no one will pay! People only want to hear hip-hop music, the rest is irrelevant!

Only it’s not. The other genres combined surpass hip-hop, and the same is true even if you throw in pop.

But now we’ve got a different metric, streaming and it is skewing perception.

Look at concert grosses. Rock overwhelmingly dominates. And there’s a huge component of today’s country, which is really just the rock of the seventies, albeit with bogus lyrics about church and trucks and family.

And not only in ticket sales is rock king, but merch too.

And if you’ve gone to any of these classic rock shows, it’s definitely not all oldsters. As for kids not being able to pay these high ticket prices…the prices are only that high because the demand is so great!

Now in the old days a sale was a sale, whether you listened to a record or not was irrelevant. Records were promoted via radio and print, and only those promoted had a huge number of sales.

Print is nearly worthless. The eighties and nineties paradigm of TV is a joke and radio still promotes, but mostly the promotion of music is about internet word of mouth. But the truth is the youngsters have more time to waste online, and they’ve got more time to listen to music, so they stream their favorites ad infinitum and then the media anoints the Spotify Top 50 and says THIS IS THE MUSIC OF AMERICA!

But it’s not.

Now what you hear on today’s Active Rock radio does not resemble anything close to classic rock, it’s noisy and discordant and oftentimes has poor vocals. As for Adult Alternative…a lot of those acts are inherently niche. However, both of these formats have a significant number of fans. But imagine if they were promoting acts that could write songs who had good voices…

Look at the classic acts. Not only could the Beatles write, they could sing! Same deal with the Eagles. Only on Active Rock and AAA is it believed you need no skills to survive. Sure, Bob Dylan’s voice is questionable/an acquired taste, but he is the best rock lyricist of all time!

In other words, the niches are driving today’s new rock off the cliff. And those who make it are playing to these niches, for these formats. Whereas if there was a push behind acts that covered the basics…

As our country grows more diverse, only in the music business do offerings and promotion get narrower. It’d be like Netflix only producing teen dramas. They might be successful, but most people would not tune in. They might even make money, but imagine how much more could be made if other genres were produced too!

That’s today’s major music business.

But music is so far ahead of movies and TV. For ten bucks a month, or a near equivalent around the world, you get the history of recorded music at your fingertips. And it is about subscriptions. Adobe went to subscription, Microsoft too. You charge less and charge forever. Stop paying and you’ve got nothing. People will pay. But we still have Nielsen factoring in sales. This would be like Apple factoring in how many people install their software via CD-ROM. Oh, that’s right, it’s all downloaded, the computers don’t even come with CD drives!

But Nielsen is so backward because that’s how the labels like it.

Proving, once again, all the innovation has been made by youngsters and outsiders.

Proving, once again, the conventional wisdom is wrong.

There’s a story in today’s WSJ comparing the value of Warner to Spotify. They’re both in the music business, but their models are totally different. Music is the ultimate in scale. Spotify doesn’t scale at all, it always has to pay sixty something percent in royalties, which is why Spotify is pivoting into podcasts, which is why its stock jumped after it acquired Joe Rogan’s show.

But Spotify is looking to the future, the music business is always stuck in the past.

You’re pissed Daniel Ek is a billionaire? Without Daniel Ek, Warner Music would be worth less than half.

But streaming was inevitable, because it’s on demand distribution, which now rules the world. Apple and HBO dribble out episodes, Netflix delivers them all at once. On Spotify, you get it all and you get it now. Which is the way people want it.

I don’t agree with all of Russ Crupnick’s conclusions here. But he’s the first person other than myself railing against the unending focus on hip-hop.

I’ve got no argument with the power of hip-hop, or its impact upon the market, but to believe it’s the only sound people want to listen to is…

Myopic.

Gaslit Nation

My skin acted up.

For those playing the home game, I have pemphigus foliaceus. Google it if you want, but be prepared to bleed.

It took eighteen months and four doctors to diagnose. According to the organization, and there’s one for every disease, the average patient sees five doctors in a year, proving that I’m my mother’s son…as in it’s illegal to be sick and if I just hang in there it will go away when the truth is if the medical establishment doesn’t know what’s going on keep searching, keep going to more doctors, because you are right and they are wrong.

And despite everybody e-mailing me their fakokta solutions, none of them work, because pemphigus foliaceus is an immune disorder, anything topical is palliative at best, in order to speak to the underlying condition you must get Rituxan, which is what they give lymphoma patients.

But the last thing I wanted to do was go to the infusion center.

But I did.

At first you’re freaked out. They take your temperature. They don’t allow anybody but the patient inside. And after being indoors for weeks, the thought of touching an unprotected door handle was overwhelming.

So, you sit in a chair for four to six hours as they drip this poison into your body, you go home and fall asleep and for the following three or four days you’re off-kilter and then you’re back.

And then you have to do it all over again.

That’s right, two infusions exactly two weeks apart.

But the problem is you don’t get the total beneficial effect for two months. Maybe you see some improvement in two weeks, a month should show results, but meanwhile, I’m itching up a storm, my legs are covered in giant red blotches, if I hadn’t experienced this before, I’d be freaking out.

But the problem is since we’re all at home, we’ve got too much time to think about our problems, there are few distractions. As for going out protesting…the dermatologist asked me if I was taking self-quarantining seriously, she emphasized how important it is.

So I’m home.

But at night I go hiking. Where fewer and fewer people are wearing masks.

Yup, Trump and his minions won. They don’t look manly, what are the odds of infection anyway, let’s all return to normal. And you may feel fine, but you’re supposed to be protecting me, and you’re not.

So I’m driving to the park last night, and I had to go when it was still hot, to beat the curfew, and Howard Stern is talking about Blackout Tuesday, how he grew up in Roosevelt, New York, which went from white to black seemingly overnight. And he’s castigating those whites who are so self-righteous but who he knew would move immediately if a black family moved in next door. And it was so riveting, that I wanted to continue to listen.

But I was out of cell range.

So I pulled up Gaslit Nation instead.

Gaslit Nation is a podcast hosted by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa. Sarah tweeted that the episode would be delayed because they wanted to get it right, they wanted to cover the insanity of our president and our country that had occurred in D.C. earlier.

And I remembered this. And downloaded the podcast. Usually I stream, that’s what unlimited plans are for, but, like I said, I was gonna be out of cell range, for about ten minutes.

And at first it was just talking heads in my ears.

And then…

The episode is entitled “Reichstag Fire.” Do you know about the Reichstag Fire?

Probably not, American schools are so busy teaching to the test that kids don’t learn anything, they don’t emerge fully-rounded citizens.

Anyway, Hitler took power, and then a month later there was this fire. The Nazis blamed the fire on the communists, when in truth it was a single perpetrator. But that didn’t matter, Hitler, et al, quashed the communists, the resistance, so there would be no contrary opinions, and then immediately passed a law getting rid of most civil liberties. You had to keep Germany safe, right?

Now I don’t want to make this about Hitler and Nazis, and that isn’t the point anyway. It’s all about authoritarianism.

And Kendzior and Chalupa are experts on authoritarianism. And that’s where we’re headed.

Forget the hoi polloi white nationalists and other Trump supporters, go straight to the top, go to Trump, that’s where the problem resides.

In other words, be afraid, be very afraid.

You keep saying it can’t happen here, and then it continues to do so. Wake up!

Sarah and Andrea walk you through the authoritarian playbook. Bringing out the military is a key element. And what is making me write this tonight is last night’s stories of unbranded cops. Because Sarah and Andrea predicted this in the podcast I’d listened to just hours before! You don’t know who is a cop and who isn’t, who is on your side and who isn’t, who to trust and who to not.

“A dangerous new factor in an uneasy moment: Unidentified law enforcement officers”

So, Trump and his cronies are blaming the problems on antifa and other leftist organizations. This is conscious, truth is irrelevant, it’s about scapegoating and eliminating dissent. You want to be safe from the rioters, right?

This is why involving the military is such a big deal. Force is needed to quiet opposing opinion.

But Mark Zuckerberg keeps saying disinformation is fine and “The New York Times” prints the Cotton opinion piece demanding the military be employed.

Sarah and Andrea rip “The New York Times” a new asshole. The paper was wrong about Iraq, it’s wrong about so many things. It’s complicit with those in power. And this is absolutely true, the “Times refuses to review Kendzior’s new book, because it’s just too dangerous, it might piss off the owners of this country.

And then there’s the denial. Yes, those in power, both in D.C. and the media, keep saying they didn’t foresee the troubles, and therefore they can’t be held accountable. It’s all about accountability. And I’m sure you noticed that they’ve arrested more people on the streets of Minneapolis than were arrested on Wall Street in 2008.

And isn’t it funny that Trump couldn’t get it together to fight Covid-19, but he lost no time jumping to action when it came to fighting dissent in the wake of the death of George Floyd. There you’ve got his priorities.

In other words, we’re on the road to autocracy and the trusted sources are not to be, trusted that is.

I know, I know, this sounds like apocalyptic drivel, but you just couldn’t conceive of what is happening now, whereas both Sarah and Andrea detailed it completely back in 2016, when Trump got elected.

But they’re in their early forties and not part of the media elite.

That’s right, Ronan Farrow is a hero because he stood up to big old NBC and then the “The New York Times” criticizes the accuracy of his work and there’s a pissing match and now Blackout Tuesday supporters are hassling Alec Baldwin for launching his podcast with Woody Allen two days ago. He should have respected the blackout.

Alec bit back, said he thought Woody was innocent, after all the only place he’s been convicted was in the court of public opinion and that he, Alec, is sick of politically correct behavior that achieves nothing.

In other words, we’re not fighting over the major issues. The two Allens, Satchel (Ronan) and Woody, dominate the headlines in big media and no one is covering what’s happening in the streets until there’s outright revolt.

Change always comes from outside. New York and D.C. like it just the way it is. Furthermore, the right has been trying to cancel California, demonizing it because of its power, as goes California, so goes the nation, without the Golden State’s economy, the entire U.S. craters.

So, the public has been neutered. Social media is pissed upon because that’s the only place regular people can communicate.

So, now is the time to listen to outsiders. Listening to the “Reichstag Fire” episode of Gaslit Nation will be the most important thing you do today. Turn off the television, forget the minute by minute news, take an hour to get historical insight into where we are now.

Trump is not unique. He’s just the latest in a long line of authoritarians. And one thing is for sure, he doesn’t want the truth revealed. He doesn’t want you to know about his dealings with Russia, he doesn’t want you to see his tax returns, he wants no investigation into his administration’s behavior and…

You sit at home and rely on checks and balances. From a do-nothing Congress and a right wing packed court system. Never forget, the Supreme Court handed victory in 2000 to Bush.

Write Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa off. Write me off. That’s what you’ve been doing for decades, pursuing wealth and ignoring process, if you can understand it at all.

But now is the time to wake up, to understand our democracy is hanging by a thread. And that the Republicans won’t save you, the Democrats won’t save you, the media won’t save you…

But you have to save yourself.

This one is on you. It’s your responsibility. To educate yourself and act accordingly.

And there’s no better place to start than with the “Reichstag Fire” episode of the Gaslit Nation podcast.

Gaslit Nation – Reichstag Fire – apple

Gaslit Nation – Reichstag Fire – spotify

Robert Kolker is the author of the best-selling book “Hidden Valley Road” (an Oprah’s Book Club choice!) as well as the “New York” magazine article upon which the HBO feature film “Bad Education” is based and the book “Lost Girls,” the film of which recently debuted on Netflix. First, we explore the mechanics of a book deal, how “Hidden Valley Road” came to be, and then we go deep into the essence of the story, about the Galvin family of Colorado Springs, with twelve children, six of whom became schizophrenic.

iheart

apple

spotify

stitcher