I am an unperson as far as Amazon is concerned. I attempted to post a review of “The Indoctrinated Brain,” which I had bought through them. It was an abridgement of what I posted here. They refused the review and deleted all 500+ of my past reviews.
I don’t need to read many books these days. Substack tells me what I need to know. Substack itself is under immense pressure. We will see if it holds up. Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk are carrying the torch for free speech. They are also under constant attack.
I subscribed to the Tucker Carlson channel for six dollars a month. He doesn’t need the money, but I am glad that he is doing what he is doing. Tonight I watched his interview with the Babylon Bee, about censorship. The Babylon Bee was suspended by Twitter for its satire. They live on the edge.
I also watched his interview with Javier Milei, president of Argentina. Milei speaks clearly and directly. He identifies Argentina’s many problems. He reminds me of Ron Paul or Donald Trump describing the problems of the United States. I predict he will be stymied by the system even more than Trump was.
Milei’s personality became known because he was a football player and a rock singer prior to becoming an economist. He has not run an organization, much less a government. Any executive needs to work through other people. People enter government not to serve but for money and power. Witness Trump’s problems with Pompeo, Bannon, Bolton and so many more.
Latin American politics periodically bounce to the right when the electorate tires of the left. Witness the Generals in Argentina in the ‘80s, Pinochet in Chile and Bolsenaro in Brazil. They fail because they too have to govern through other people. In addition, the press is relentlessly against anything in the right.
Argentina has been here before. Until today I could have pointed you to my review of A Brief History of Argentina. Ask and I’ll mail it.
I was already running out of projects to keep me busy. Book reviewing had gotten stale – the same thing stated over and over by different authors. My primary objective is raising kids. The question facing me is how best to do that?
Schools say they welcome volunteers, but they invariably want to keep them under control and at an appropriate arm’s length. I have written about how the Sunflower School made it impossible for me to teach English, and was even less open to suggestions as to how a school should be organized. Though it continues to suffer from the grave organizational problems I tried to point out four years ago, nobody wants to think about them. As far as Zoriana goes, this means finding another school and/or watching closely to ensure that she is actually learning the English, math and writing that she should.
Eddie’s school may be open to having me participate as a native English speaker. I’ll look into maybe setting up a discussion group – students and/or parents - and be careful not to presume to do anything more than help people with English.
The war is getting boring. Fewer of you open my Bob Homans posts. Denys Davydov and Reporting from Ukraine readership is down The western press is tired of us. I’m not as pessimistic as the mainstream press. This Kyiv Post article comes as close as any to expressing my point of view. Things are at a stalemate. The Russians will not be at our door any time soon, but neither will we have anything that looks like a victory.
Big things are brewing on larger stages. For better or worse, our war is likely to be overtaken by events.
I'm shocked, Graham, although I suppose I shouldn't be, considering these times, that Amazon not only rejected your book review but deleted all your previous reviews. I always enjoyed reading your reviews, considering them thorough, thoughtful, dispassionate and rational. Of course, you had a point of view -- who has not? -- but it was nothing extreme, merely your world view based on your own experiences in your life. I didn't necessarily agree with it, but that's fine. People have different views and it's good to learn what they are and understand that your own world view is only one among many. Knowing that helps you examine your own beliefs and why you hold them and consider whether the other person's viewpoint is incorrect or yours is.
It seems in this world emerging there is to be no dissident view tolerated in any field. That's going to bring scientific research and medical progress to a standstill, among other things.
As far as Substack being under pressure to censor, here are two links:
"Journalists Start Demanding Substack Censor its Writers: to Bar Critiques of Journalists"
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/journalists-start-demanding-substack
"Substack defends free expression as critics call for censoring vaccine skeptics"
https://www.foxnews.com/media/substack-free-expression-vaccine-skeptics
There are many more.
Amazon's CEO Bezos is a member of WEF.