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Good evening. It's Monday, February 5.
Tonight: there's a very serious and grave scandal unfolding in American journalism. Viewers should be warned that some of the details are very disturbing, at least for those of us who have ethical codes. Over the weekend, it was discovered that the lifelong American journalist Tucker Carlson was physically present in Moscow, which is located in Russia. Not only that but he was caught red-handed, appearing in person at the Bolshoi Ballet, the home of some of the most barbaric human rights abuses known anywhere on the planet. It's known as “Moscow's Gulag.” And if that weren't bad enough, and really, how could it get any worse? Rumors were circulating that one of the reasons Carlson traveled to Russia was because he intended to do something that no genuine journalist would ever do. It was rumored that he might be conducting an interview with the head of state of this foreign country so that he could ask questions of that leader and allow Americans and others to hear his responses. It's nothing short of stomach-turning.
The liberal sector of our political media class handled the news with the scorn it deserved, but also very soberly, in such a restrained way: that Tucker Carlson is a traitor to America, that he committed treason because of this visit was a virtual consensus among liberals and neocons—even though the U.S. is not at war with the country he got caught visiting. Some actually called for him to be stripped of his citizenship, or at least denied the most basic right of American citizenship: the ability to be let back into the country upon his return. Some viral tweets even suggested that, by going to Russia, Carlson—in light of his opposition to U.S. financing of the war in Ukraine—is now a legitimate military target of the Ukrainian military forces, meaning, in other words, they’re arguing, he should be murdered in a terrorist attack while in Moscow.
All of this, needless to say, says far more about the McCarthyite state of liberal discourse and the base authoritarianism of the elite liberal mind than it does about Carlson and that's why we think it's so worth reviewing what is happening here.
Then: when it comes to the right of free speech and academic freedom, it is rare that we can report good news. That's because ever since 2016, with the dual blows to the neoliberal order of the withdrawal by the UK from the EU and Hillary Clinton's defeat at the hands of Donald Trump, Western power centers have been aggressively and inexorably implementing a regime of political censorship, especially on the Internet. But earlier today, we had genuine good news on the free speech and censorship front.
David Miller is a political sociologist. In 2021, he was fired by Bristol University in the UK, where he was a professor, in the wake of complaints from prominent British politicians and Jewish student groups, who argued that his criticisms in opposition to the Israeli government and the way that pro-Israel groups wield influence inside Britain incited hatred against Jewish students and make them unsafe—exactly the same theory often invoked in the U.S. to justify the firing of conservative scholars in campuses throughout the West for expressing heterodox and anti-establishment views on race, gender, ideology, and gay issues.
Professor Miller was on our show last August to discuss why he was appealing his firing and why he was suing the diversity for wrongful termination as a violation of his rights. Earlier today, the UK's Regional Employment Court issued a 108-page ruling that was a ringing endorsement of free speech rights and academic freedom, ruling that Miller's anti-Zionism views are squarely within the philosophical beliefs protected by human rights law, which guarantees freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and academic freedom, and that he was, therefore, a victim of wrongful termination by the university. We'll have Professor Miller back on to discuss this important precedent and why it benefits not only him but all of us.
And then finally, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, of New York, and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, proudly and jointly unveiled a $120 billion bipartisan bill, which they say will successfully finance other countries' wars while helping secure America's own border. Among the problems with this bill, the vast majority of the $120 billion will go to other countries to fuel their wars, and not to the United States or American citizens. And that's because Mitch McConnell has long made clear that his highest priority is not the people of Kentucky, whom he ostensibly represents—and who suffer from some of the worst deprivations in the United States, including among them the lowest life expectancy—but rather ensuring that the U.S. fully finance Ukraine and Israel's wars is somehow the priority of this Kentucky senator. We'll break down this bill to show why it's such a perfect expression of Washington's bipartisan, rotted priority scheme.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
