Episode 73: Gobbledygook

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(This episode is part of the series The Powell Movement.)

Soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, Jr. was very explicit: "One finds almost no attractive, well-written paperbacks or pamphlets on 'our side.' It will be difficult to compete … for reader attention, but unless the effort is made — on a large enough scale and with appropriate imagination to assure some success — this opportunity for educating the public will be irretrievably lost…." Which explains the abundance of books that support the right of the political spectrum, doesn't it?

In this Episode 73: Gobbledygook, I rehash a book review I wrote years ago for my neighbor's magazine and take a deepish dive into one such book and explore the history behind the word I chose to use to define it and others of that category.

In this episode, you hear D. L. Myers reading from The Memo Itself. I read from the Maverick Family's objection to John McCain's appropriation of their family name as a campaign slogan, and from Governor Mike Huckabee's 2014 book God, Guns, Grits, and Gravy. Yup. Mike. Huckabee.

I play four tunes from Podington Bear: "Bumble," "Dog and Pony Show," "Transmogrify," and "Conveyor Belt." I open the show with KMFDM backing Henry Giroux once again, and close with Mistle Thrush's "It's All Like Today."

Episode 72: The Distortion Factories Part II

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(This episode is part of the series The Powell Movement.)

Once a bunch of extremely rich people heard the organizing call from Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.; once their fortunes established philanthropic foundations professionally staffed with the best money could hire; what happened then? This is the topic I explore in Episode 72: The Distortion Factories Part II.

Here I finish my deep dive into what I think is a good example of such a Distortion Factory, one that suckered me in back in '90 or so: The Breakthrough Institute.

(Cards on the table yet again: I am neither pro- nor anti-nuke: I feel there are a lot of promising technologies one can find that happen to function through nuclear fission; I also recognize that there are a lot of bad designs that should be retired and scrapped as soon as possible. The Breakthrough Institute initially got me interested in its brash rejection of traditional "environmentalism" and, yes, its embrace of nuclear tech. They lost me with their convoluted logic and embrace of *all* things nuke. Once I learned about distributed generation—the very antithesis of centralized nuke plants feeding a hub-shaped power grid—I started to realize how business-centric the Breakthrough Institute really was.)

In this part, you heard me read from the website for Third Way, and from Jane Mayer's Dark Money. I played a bit from Michael Shellenberger's TED talk. Musically, you heard Jahzzar's "Liar" (I cut it into segments, playing the first half twice, and you're hearing the end of it now), and another song called "FO." (Please, oh please, let that stand for Fuck Off!) Once again, D.L. Myers helped out with his voice reading the spooky, spooky Memo Itself. I opened the show with KMFDM backing Henry Giroux.