I'm spending a very quick couple of days in Austin, Texas, and had a chance to have lunch today with Adam Curry, whom I watched as a teenager when he was a VJ on MTV.
Today, Adam is an important podcaster, co-hosting the No Agenda show with John C. Dvorak, and in fact a true pioneer in podcasting in general. He was one of the very first to identify and develop the idea.
Through the various obsessions on the past couple of years Adam has distinguished himself as a voice of reason. So I was very glad to have a chance to sit down casually with him, which is even better than having him on the Tom Woods Show (which I have indeed done more than once).
Toward the end of our conversation, Adam insisted that today is a great time to be a podcaster.
Oddly enough, I'd never really thought about it like that. But he's right.
The official news outlets are a joke. I had known that for some time, of course, but the extent to which they are truly nothing but propaganda factories has never been clearer. Even the headlines themselves are driven by an agenda.
As a podcaster I can defy the media's narratives and get away with it. Every single day if I want to. (And indeed I release a new Tom Woods Show episode every weekday.) I can reach a potentially limitless audience, and reassure them that they haven't lost their minds. I can reach and inform that segment of the population whose instincts tell them not to jump on board the establishment's latest bout of hysteria.
Because of independent sources like the Tom Woods Show, a lot of people didn't have to wait two years to learn the truth about COVID, and what we laughingly call the "mitigation methods," that my listeners and I have known from the beginning.
The same goes for war propaganda, too. YouTube, as I mentioned yesterday, wants to make sure only approved sources are allowed to reach the public. How many times can mankind live through war propaganda, find out it's false, and swear not to be fooled next time?
After World War I the intellectual classes were actually embarrassed at how they had behaved during that conflict. (If only our intellectuals today were capable of embarrassment.) After the war ended they wanted to promote international understanding. Thus was born the student exchange program, for example. And increased emphasis on the teaching of more languages. And efforts to teach history in less simplistic, chauvinistic ways.
That spirit is long gone now. It's back to looking at current events as if the people involved are comic-book characters, and with one side uniquely innocent and righteous.
This would not satisfy a second grader, but it's what we're fed by the official sources.
I've never been more proud not to be an official source.
Adam is right: this is a great time to be a podcaster.
At the same time:
It can't be all COVID, or all Russia, all the time.
I would hate that. I trust my listeners would, too.
So I talk about all kinds of interesting topics.
Most recently, I had the author of the new book Hitler's National Socialism on to discuss Hitler's views on economics, politics, and society.
Socialists furiously deny that Hitler was one of them. They have to do that, because they certainly don't want to be associated with him.
So Dr. Rainer Zitelmann, the top expert on the subject, joined me to discuss it.
Enjoy:
Tom Woods
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