A Honking Good Time! w/ Gord Magill
Added 2022-02-03 06:21:24 +0000 UTCWe have Canadian trucker and political commentator Gord Magill on to discuss the ongoing trucker protest in Canada. Check out Gord' latest piece in Newsweek: https://www.newsweek.com/elites-are-smearing-truckers-because-were-doing-their-job-representing-people-opinion-1675022
Comments
Fwiw, the Joe Rogan controversy seems to be following the pattern I indicated above. First, he has COVID-regime opponents on. Then he gets smeared as a racist. And the video statement he issued in response to the criticisms for the first offense is also telling, in that he explicitly promises to have more consensus scientists on, going forward (in fact, he seems to envision using them to neutralize whatever the future "controversial" scientists might say).
George
2022-02-08 17:18:02 +0000 UTCIt'd be an interesting show so we'll certainly add it to the list.
William Mckay
2022-02-06 23:38:50 +0000 UTCThis thought was triggered by Magill’s reference to the “thought-terminating” use of certain epithets to smear the truckers. Have you guys discussed, or considered discussing, the topic of scientism? This theme seems to be lurking in the background of your science-related shows. From my American perspective it seems to me that, in the wake of Trump’s election, there was some ideological crystallization on the left, combining scientism with anti-racism, gender equity, and anti-fascism. Thus people like Trudeau can paint COVID-regime opponents as anti-science, racist and misogynist in one breath, as was done myriad times against Trump and his supporters. By ‘scientism’ I mean, roughly, an irrational faith in ‘consensus science.’ Politically, it has a functional relationship to the other components of this ideology: it allows one to argue that 1. since the ‘consensus science’ claims X (the necessity of vaccination against COVID, climate change crises or whatever), there can be no legitimate reason for questioning X. 2. Since there is no legitimate reason for questioning X, those who question X must be ______ [fill in the blank: fascists, racists, shills for the fossil fuel industry, etc.]. Anyway, some sort of big-picture discussion of the political use of science in the current era might be worth considering …
George
2022-02-06 23:12:42 +0000 UTC
