Happy Monday everyone, and welcome to another edition of the most popular column on The Banter!
End of Twitter? Not so fast…
Readers might have noticed our fairly relentless coverage of Elon Musk’s take over of Twitter. I want to make sure we don’t over do it with readers, but I do believe it is one of the most consequential events in recent history given the platforms outside influence on politics around the world.
When a slew of alternatives popped up, I became very excited about them given Musk’s conspiratorial politics. When Substack announced it was getting into the game, I genuinely believed this was the company best positioned to take on the bird site. We did an in depth podcast about Musk, the Twitter Files, and Substack’s new network yesterday, and readers weighed in with their thoughts. They weren’t quite as enthusiastic as I am. One reader writes:
I don't think Substack Notes is going to be the end of Twitter. Granted, Twitter has become a garbage heap over the last 12 months. It was trashy before, but now it's just trash. I appreciate Substack because I can read longer form journalism here by writers I respect AND listen to podcasts and see videos. But not from ALL the writers I respect. I have to spread ny dough around to Patreon and Medium and some other sites. I'm ok with that. I'm cool with the idea that there should not be one social media platform to rule them all. But hey, that's just me. Trying not to be a lazy thinker. I feel like Substack Notes has the potential to be a big old echo chamber. I dunno. Jury's still out. I have however been totally fascinated by the fall of Matt Taibbi. I can remember actually bookmarking an article he wrote for Rolling Stone a really long time ago (I'm old) and it seemed like it only took a couple of years from that article for his descent into ineptitude to begin. It's been a weird show since then.
Says another:
Substack Notes is no more “Twitter killer” than mastodon, Google+, truth, Parker, etc - it’s burdened by far than even those too.
We didn’t join Substack to get away from Twitter either, we came here for independent long form journalism.
Unclear what this fall of Taibbi refers to though. He’s just doing what he’s done for 30 years, calling out corruption wherever he sees. The fact unfortunately it’s now our “side” trying to control speech, ideas, mis/disinformation should trouble us as much as it did during the Bush years.
While I’m spending a good amount of time on Notes (you can find me here), it isn’t going to detract from the long form journalism we do. From what I’ve observed, other Substack publications are thinking along the same lines — that they can get off of Twitter and have greater control over the content they create. Remember: only Elon Musk profits from your activity on Twitter. On Notes, Substack gets their cut, but the majority still goes to the writer ensuring they can make a living creating worthy content. I think that’s pretty revolutionary. Maybe we don’t need a “Twitter killer” — just a better place to engage in conversation where algorithms don’t ruin everything.
Who wants to live in Russia?
A deeply infuriating theme in far left politics is the notion that America (more broadly the ‘West’) and Russia are moral equivalents. This isn’t to absolve Western democratic countries of their crimes, but to acknowledge the very obvious differences. This is what happens in Russia if you publicly oppose the invasion of Ukraine:
A court in Moscow has sentenced the opposition activist Vladimir Kara-Murza to 25 years in prison, in one of the most high-profile cases to date of a Russian dissident being jailed for opposing the invasion of Ukraine.
Kara-Murza, who holds Russian and British citizenship and studied at the University of Cambridge, was detained in April 2022 and charged with spreading false information about the Russian army in Ukraine. He was later also charged with high treason over a series of public speeches he made that criticised Kremlin policies and the war in Ukraine.
Kara-Murza’s sentence is the longest yet given to a political opponent of Vladimir Putin, as the Kremlin further steps up its relentless crackdown on dissent.
Even during the dark days of the Bush administration during the invasion of Iraq, you could speak out about the war and not go to prison for a quarter of a century. I was at college in Oregon in 2003 where there were pro war marches on campus, but you could still say whatever you wanted about the administration and the obvious crimes they were committing. I know, because I spent a lot of time engaging in anti-war activities on campus. The far left in America minimizes, and in some cases romanticizes the behavior of dictators like Vladimir Putin because they don’t have to live in Russia:
This goes for the far right too. Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene for example are particularly enamored with Vladimir Putin, so much so that one wonders why they don’t take up residency there. If Trump gets trounced again in 2024, we might get lucky…
A question for anti-vaxxers
I’m very curious to see whether Covid anti-vaxxers are going to pledge not to use this should they be unfortunate enough to get melanoma:
The vaccine technology America learned about during the pandemic was originally aimed at cancer, but its use against infectious diseases took off in the pandemic. Now a new study suggests specially designed mRNA shots can help prevent recurrences of melanoma, a dreaded skin cancer.
The study, presented Sunday at a research conference, showed that after nearly two years, patients who received a personalized mRNA vaccine made by Moderna and Merck were 44% more likely to be alive and avoid new tumors than those who received only the standard of care.
If the results hold up in a larger, longer study planned to start later this year, it will mark a dramatic turnaround for cancer vaccines, which have been tested and failed for decades.
Anti-vaxxers are currently taking victory laps on Twitter now that Musk has allowed misinformation to flood the network, but I have yet to see much discussion on this. One wonders why.
The truth is, we were incredibly lucky that Covid is a relatively benign virus. If the death rate was similar to something like Ebola (around 50%), the anti-vax grift wouldn’t be nearly so lucrative. The more serious the disease, the less questions anti-vaxxers and New Age wellness grifters apparently have about “Western medicine”. You get a deadly form of cancer, you get the most advanced treatment possible. And that isn’t found in the essential oils section of Whole Foods.
Listen up!
It would be remiss of me not to plug the latest episode of The Banter Roundtable podcast on the “F**king Mondays” column. It’s free, hilarious, and should be listened to if you want to show off to friends and family about how politically clued up you are:
"They Were Actually Crying" (Listen here)
The Emergency Meeting podcast for members is out here: The Elon Musk vs Matt Taibbi Apocalypse
Keep the comments coming please. We really do love hearing what you have to say.
We’ll be back next week :)
Ben
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My husband and I visited Russia (Moscow and St. Petersburg) i 1994, where a friend was working in food aid at the time. It was a fascinating time to be in Russia - it was right after the breakup of the Soviet Union and there was a hopefulness and budding youth movement that was very heartening. But there was an underlying unease about being there.
We were advised not to speak English too loudly in public. We were advised not to eat locally produced food (radiation and heavy metal poisoning) nor drink the water (ditto - no environmental regulations at all). We were once hassled by one of the ubiquitous policemen for having luggage stacked too high on a trolley in the metro, and even though all he did was make us redistribute everything, there was just a feeling that you could fuck up without even knowing it and if you did get sucked into the penal system somehow, the consequences could be quite dire. As we've seen.
Also while we were there, the "private sector" was setting up business and control and making sure that all the budding small businesses, the people standing outside a metro station covered with clothes on hangers to sell, the elderly ladies selling Russian crafts, all paid their mordita for protection. A private mailbox in the lobby where our friend was living got blown up during our visit. From a vantage point of thirty years later, we all know what happened between now and then. I would imagine the general atmosphere is even more paranoia-inducing than it was when we were there, during that short but hopeful window. This is what it's like to live under an autocracy; never being able to fully relax in public.
OTOH, I am now starting to feel uncomfortable in public in this country, thanks to gun violence. Personally, I believe they're connected. It's not a coincidence that tons of Russian money has poured into the NRA. Of course, private citizens can't own guns in Russia. This is something that current Russophiles don't like to acknowledge and probably one reason - in addition to the fact that they probably know, even if subliminally, that living in an autocracy is not nearly as cushy as living in the good ol' USA - they don't move to Russia: they'd have to give up their guns.
I find two things astonishing. First, that the anti-Communist party for how many years?, destroyed how many lives? now actively supports a communist Russia. Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds. Second, how history repeats itself. Most every American who was seduced by Communism in the 30s repudiated it when they discovered just how bad Stalin was and how awful the Russian manifestation of Communism was, too. Yet, here we are. Russian good 90 odd years later.